Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!uni-erlangen.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!newsfeed.freenet.de!news2.euro.net!pop-news-1.colt-telecom.nl!peernews2.colt.net!colt.net!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!cucumber.demon.co.uk!new-usenet.uk.sun.com!not-for-mail
From: Casper.Dik@Holland.Sun.COM (Casper H.S. Dik - Network Security Engineer)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.solaris,comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.answers,news.answers
Subject: Solaris 2 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) 1.73
Supersedes:
Followup-To: comp.unix.solaris
Date: 27 Jan 2002 14:05:34 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems
Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
Expires: 10 Mar 2002 14:05:33 GMT
Message-ID:
Reply-To: Casper.Dik@Holland.Sun.COM
NNTP-Posting-Host: room101.holland.sun.com
Summary: This posting contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions (and
answers) about Sun Microsystems Solaris 2.x system in general.
See also the FAQ archived as Solaris2/Porting.
X-NNTP-Posting-Host: cucumber.demon.co.uk:158.152.58.86
X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1012260171 nnrp-13:1773 NO-IDENT cucumber.demon.co.uk:158.152.58.86
X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net
NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Jan 2002 14:05:34 GMT
Lines: 5240
Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu comp.unix.solaris:353893 comp.sys.sun.admin:175104 comp.answers:48710 news.answers:223834
Archive-name: Solaris2/FAQ
Version: 1.73
Last-Modified: 2002/01/27 14:05:23
Maintained-by: Casper Dik
The following is a list of questions that are frequently asked about
Solaris 2.x and later. Where the FAQ mentions "Solaris 2.x", it
really refers to Solaris 2.x, Solaris 7 and later.
You can help make it an even better-quality FAQ by writing a short
contribution or update and sending it BY EMAIL ONLY to me. A
contribution should consist of a question and an answer, and increasing
number of people sends me contributions of the form "I don't know the
answer to this, but it must be a FAQ, please answer it for me"; please
don't send me those.
Thanks!
As you may have noted, I have switched employers and work for Sun as of
April 1st 1995. Sun is in no way responsible for the contents
of this FAQ.
The latest Solaris 2 FAQ, including an HTML version, and some other goodies
can be obtained through ftp from .
A new version of the FAQ is available with an index separate from
all questions, it's .
So it's a lot quicker to download. Also, an experimental FAQ search service
at is now available.
Please note that these addresses have changed because of a reorg. Just
replace "fwi" in the old addresses with "wins".
The HTML version
of the FAQ contains references to most FTP sites and files mentioned
in the FAQ. The references to ftp sites are always to either HTML
files or directories, never to binary files.
I've added an index of questions and marked changed(*) and added
questions(+). The FAQ is being reorganized, time permitting.
The index is generated automatically, so there may be errors there.
Not all questions are in the section they belong in. Suggestions on
how best to subdivide/order the FAQ are welcome.
1. GENERAL
1.1) What's Solaris anyway?
1.2) Why should I upgrade?
1.3) Should I move to Solaris 2.x now, or later, or never?
1.4) What is Solaris 2? Is it really SVR4 based?
1.5) What machines does Solaris 2.x run on?
1.6) Will my old applications from 4.1.x run on Solaris 2?
1.7) Will my SPARC binaries run unchanged on UltraSPARC machines?
1.8) Will my old applications from SVR3 on the 386 run on Solaris 2/x86?
1.9) Where has the XXX command gone now?
1.10) When I upgrade, should I use SunInstall "upgrade", or start over?
1.11) Is Solaris 2.x reliable/stable enough to use?
1.12) Why do some people dislike Solaris2?
1.13) Why do some people *like* Solaris2?
1.14) What is Sun doing to help me migrate?
1.15) Can I use my SunOS 4 disks on Solaris 2.x?
1.16) How can I enable System V IPC? Ipcs says it isn't configured in.
1.17) Solaris 7 is 64 bit, does that affect Solaris/IA-32?
| *1.18) Solaris 7 is 64 bit, does this mean I can no longer use my old SPARCs?
| 1.19) Where can I download Solaris binaries from?
| +1.20) What Solaris release am I running on my system?
2. SOURCES OF INFORMATION
2.1) How can I RTFM when I don't have it anymore?
2.2) Why is "man -k" so confused?
2.3) What Software is available for Solaris 2.x?
2.4) What FTP/WWW sites do I need to know about?
2.5) What other FAQ's do I need to know about?
2.6) What mailing lists should I get?
2.7) What books should I read?
2.8) What hardware is supported by Solaris 2.x for Intel?
2.9) What is Wabi?
2.10) I'm running into some limits of SunOS 4.x, will upgrading to
Solaris 2.x help?
3. SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION
3.1) How much disk space do I need to install Solaris 2?
3.2) How can I convert all my local changes that I've made over the
years into their corresponding forms on Solaris 2?
3.3) What are "packages"?
3.4) Why can't I write in/mount over /home?
3.5) Why can't I access CDs or floppies?
3.6) Why are there no passwords in /etc/passwd?
3.7) Why can't I rlogin/telnet in as root?
3.8) How can I have a user without a password?
3.9) How can I set up anonymous FTP?
3.10) How can I print from a Solaris 2 (or any System V Release 4) system
to a SunOS4.x (or any other BSD) system?
3.11) How can I print to a non-Postscript/non-ascii printer?
3.12) How can I print to a networked printer?
3.13) Why does lp complain about invalid content types?
3.14) My jobs stay in the queue after printing.
3.15) Are there any alternatives to the system V spooler?
3.16) What happened to /dev/MAKEDEV? How do I add devices?
3.17) Why isn't my tape/cd player or new disk/device recognized?
3.18) What happened to /etc/rc and /etc/rc.local?
3.19) Can't I have /etc/rc.local back?
3.20) Why are there two versions of shutdown?
3.21) When will somebody publish a package of the BSD (4.3BSD Net2)
"init", "getty", and "rc/rc.local", so we can go back to life
in the good old days?
3.22) What has happened to getty? What is pmadm and how do you use it?
3.23) How do I get the screen to blank when nobody's using it?
3.24) And what about screendump, screenload and clear_colormap?
3.25) Where did etherfind go?
3.26) Can I run SunOS 4.1.x on my SPARC Classic, LX, SS5, SS4, SS20, Voyager,
SS1000, SC2000, CS6400, Ultra?
3.27) The "find" program complains that my root directory doesn't exist?
3.28) I'm having troubles with high-speed input on the Sparc serial
ports. What should I do?
3.29) How do I make ksh or csh be the login shell for root?
3.30) What is this message: "automount: No network locking on host,
contact administrator to install server change."?
3.31) I have all kinds of problems with SCSI disks/RAIDs under Solaris 2.x
They worked fine under SunOS 4.x.
3.32) How do I make Solaris2 use my old ADAPTEC ACB-4000 and
Emulex MD-21 disk controllers?
3.33) Should I wait installing the latest Solaris release until there
are enough patches?
3.34) Why are there so many patches for Solaris 2.x?
3.35) What are the ``mandatory'' patches I keep hearing about?
3.36) Which patches should I apply?
3.37) Where do I get patches from?
3.38) Where can I obtain Solaris 2/x86 driver updates?
3.39) Why does installing patches take so much space in /var/sadm?
3.40) Do I need to back out previous versions of a patch?
3.41) How can I have more than 48 pseudo-ttys?
3.42) How can I have normal users chown their files?
3.43) How can I get ps to print %MEM and %CPU?
3.44) How can I get the DOS and Unix clock to agree on Solaris/x86?
3.45) How can I increase the number of file descriptors per process?
3.46) Can I install both SunOS and Solaris on the same machine,
and choose between them at boot time?
3.47) How do I disable banner pages under Solaris?
3.48) How do I change my hostname?
| 3.49) Can I run multiple terminals on the console of Solaris x86
like those supported on Interactive Unix and SCO?
3.50) How can I prevent daemons from creating mode 666 files?
3.51) How do I change the terminal type for /dev/console?
3.52) If I login over the network, my terminal type is set to "sun"/"AT386"
How can I change that? In SunOS 4.x the type would have been "network"
3.53) How can I change the SYSV IPC parameters?
3.54) How do I enable/disable dtlogin?
3.55) How do I configure dtlogin?
3.56) How can I configure a second monitor or change X server options?
| 3.57) How can I have more than 128 X windows clients?
| 3.58) Xvnc/Xnest/Xvfb can't create a socket in /tmp/.X11-unix.
3.59) How can I restrict remote access through dtlogin?
3.60) How do I disable the 2.6+ configuration assistant?
3.61) How do I convert SunOS 4.x style /etc/passwd to Solaris passwd & shadow.
3.62) How can I obtain the PROM level without halting my SPARC?
3.63) How can I use Solaris 2.6+ formatted disks on SunOS 4.x?
3.64) Can I use soft mounts with NFS?
| *3.65) How can I boot a 32 bit kernel when a 64 bit kernel is installed?
| 3.66) How can I tell whether I'm running a 32 or 64 bit kernel?
3.67) How do I get rid of the Solregis pop-up?
3.68) Where do I get Disksuite for Solaris 8
3.69) How do perform an old-fashioned interactive install in Solaris 8?
3.70) Now that Solaris install from several CDs, how can I jumpstart?
3.71) How can I grow a UFS filesystem?
3.72) How do I install without starting OpenWindows?
3.73) How do I set up Solaris for my time zone and daylight saving rules?
3.74) I always install my own perl, can I remove the Sun installed one?
| +3.75) Where did kgmon go?
4. NETWORKING
4.1) How do I use DNS w/o using NIS or NIS+?
4.2) What is /etc/nsswitch.conf?
4.3) What does [NOTFOUND=return] in nsswitch.conf mean?
4.4) Can I run a nis/yp server under Solaris 2.x?
4.5) Can I run NIS+ under Solaris 1 (SunOS 4.1.x)
4.6) With NIS+ how do I find out which machine a client is bound to?
4.7) Ypcat doesn't work on the netgroup table on a NIS+ server, why?
4.8) Why is rpc.nisd such a memory pig according to ps?
4.9) How do I tell my NIS+ server to service DNS requests from
4.x clients?
4.10) How can I have multiple addresses per interface?
4.11) Solaris 2.x supports filesystem sizes up to 1TB. Will this
give interoperability problems with NFS?
4.12) Where can I get an SNMP agent for Solaris?
| *4.13) How can I use full-duplex ethernet?
4.14) Where can I get BOOTP/DHCP for Solaris?
4.15) What kind of multicast support does Solaris have?
4.16) How can I have NAT or a firewall on Solaris?
| *4.17) Where can I get an IPv6 capable version of tcp wrapper?
5. TROUBLE SHOOTING
5.1) The Solaris 2.x application XX fails with a mysterious error condition.
5.2) In Solaris 2.5 nm is slow or dumps core.
5.3) Why can't I run Answerbook on a standalone machine?
5.4) Why can't I display Answerbook remotely?
5.5) Why can't I run filemgr, I get ``mknod: permission denied''?
5.6) Why do I get isinf undefined when linking with libdps on Solaris 2.3?
5.7) I can't get PPP to work between Solaris 2.3 and other platforms.
5.8) Using compat mode for passwd doesn't work in 2.3?
5.9) Why do I get __builtin_va_alist or __builtin_va_arg_incr undefined?
5.10) When compiling, I get "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"?
5.11) My machine hangs during the boot process. It seems related to ps.
5.12) Syslogd doesn't seem to log anything.
5.13) Syslogd in 2.6 runs with -z -n, what's up?
5.14) I get ``Invalid client credential'' when mounting filesystem on
Solaris client from non-Sun fileserver.
5.15) After upgrade to 2.4, ls on NFS mounted directories hangs.
5.16) After installing patch 101945-xx, I have NFS problems (ksh looping).
5.17) I messed up /etc/system, now I can't boot.
5.18) The /etc/path_to_inst file is corrupted, I can't boot.
5.19) TCP/IP connections time out too soon, especially on slow links.
5.20) Sendmail connection to non-Unix hosts don't work.
5.21) Solaris 2.x can't set up any TCP/IP connections to certain hosts.
5.22) I read 5.21, but I still have connectivity problems.
5.23) When reading mail on non-Solaris clients of a Solaris mail
server, or with non-Solaris mail readers, some messages get split
into multiple messages.
5.24) Mail/mailx often send reply to wrong user or show wrong sender.
5.25) One of my users can't login (one some machines).
5.26) My clients with remote /var (/var/adm) partitions won't boot.
5.27) Vacation doesn't work reliably in a mixed Solaris/SunOS environment.
5.28) I have a lot of processes. How do I get rid of them?
5.29) I get /dev/ptmx: No such device when attempting to telnet/rlogin in.
5.30) ld bails out with msync errors.
5.31) su responds with "Sorry" and doesn't prompt for a password.
5.32) Why can't I install 2.4 from a non-Sun CD while I could do so with 2.3?
5.33) ifconfig can't find my network interface
5.34) I have an application that compiled fine, but when I run it I get:
fatal: libfoo.so.2: can't open file: errno=2 or No such file or directory
5.35) Motif programs dump core almost immediately.
| 5.36) cc complains that "language optional software package not installed".
5.37) thr_create/pthread_create and other thread functions always return -1
5.38) Solaris 2.4 is getting slower over time/seems to have a kernel
memory leak.
5.39) Why do I get ``Unable to install/attach driver 'xxx''' messages?
5.40) I can't run nfs: netdir_getbyname failure, /dev/udp: bind problem
5.41) Why do I get ``named[]: rt_malloc: memdebug overflow'' errors?
| 5.42) The ld command dumps core on Solaris/x86
5.43) In Solaris 2.4 my TCP performance is extremely poor.
5.44) Solaris 2.4 in.tftpd is terribly slow.
5.45) I get "df: Could not find mount point ..."
| 5.46) I changed root's shell, forgotten root's password, and I can't login.
5.47) How do I boot single user from CD?
| +5.48) How do I interrupt the system boot sequence on SPARC?
| +5.49) How do I reset the NVRAM to factory defaults?
| 5.50) When linking C++ programs, I get "_ex_keylock" undefined.
| 5.51) My NFS server hangs when I get filesystem full/over quota errors.
| 5.52) OpenWindows fails with "Binding Unix Socket: Invalid argument"
| 5.53) Why is Xsun such a memory pig, especially on the SX, S24 and FFB?
| 5.54) Solaris 2.5 and Solaris 2.4 patch 101945-34+ have poor TCP performance
over slow links.
| 5.55) After install x86 patch 101946-29, I have problems with sockets and
TCP/IP throughput.
| 5.56) The commands du and ls show funny block counts on NFSv3 filesystems.
| 5.57) When I halt/reboot my system I get "INIT: failed write of utmpx entry"
| 5.58) Patch installation often fails with "checkinstall" errors.
| 5.59) Why do I get a CPU-bound rpc.ttdbserverd process?
| 5.60) What is /proc? Can I safely remove the large files there?
| 5.61) What does "named[XX]: Lame server on 'hostname' ...." mean?
| 5.62) I installed Solaris on a new/big disk, but now booting fails.
| *5.63) I have a problem with large disk drives.
| 5.64) When I try a network install I get:
"WARNING: using boot version 8, expected 9"
| 5.65) My Ultra shuts down with "WARNING: THERMAL WARNING DETECTED!!!"
| 5.66) Power management shuts down my monitor, but it never comes back.
| 5.67) I can't seem to disable power management in 2.6!
| 5.68) Power management no longer kicks in when xlock runs
| 5.69) Orainst 7.3.2 dumps core in 2.5.1 with patches and in 2.6.
| 5.70) My dial-on-demand link keeps dialing out, seems DNS related.
| 5.71) Processes hang in door_call(), hostname lookups hang.
| 5.72) When using Solaris 2.6, many fonts don't show up properly in Netscape 4.
| 5.73) When using virtual interfaces in 2.6, the system picks a random
source address. How can I fix this?
| 5.74) A downloaded binary complains "libresolv.so.2: can't open file"
| 5.75) Ypserv/NIS w/ DNS is very unreliable in Solaris 2.6.
| 5.76) When trying to install Solaris 2.x on an Ultra-5/Ultra-10/Ultra-60,
it can't find "kernel/unix".
| 5.77) After the system has been up for a while, freemem is only a couple of MB.
| 5.78) A device driver that worked fine under S2.6 stopped loading under S7
| 5.79) I get a lot of "late collisions", what are those?
| 5.80) I can't mount an NFS filesystem, I get "RPC: Program not registered".
| 5.81) How do I automatically NFS share inserted CD-Roms?
| 5.82) I cannot run remote tooltalk sessions on Solaris 8 displays and
recently patched older systems.
| 5.83) Where is all my memory in use?
| 5.84) Tcpd prints "connect (refused) from 0.0.0.0" in Solaris 8 and later?
| 5.85) The permissions on /tmp are wrong after a reboot?
6. SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
6.1) Where is the C compiler or where can I get one?
6.2) Which packages do I need to install to support a C compiler?
6.3) Where has ranlib gone?
6.4) What do I need to compile X11R5?
6.5) I can't compile X11R6 on Solaris 2.4
6.6) X11R6 on Solaris 2.4 won't run. Xinit dies with "User Signal 1".
Xterms won't die. Dired doesn't work in emacs-19.
6.7) I get undefined symbols when compiling R6 in Solaris 2.2.
6.8) After compiling X11R6 with gcc 2.7.0, X programs won't find their
libraries.
6.9) How can I run X11R6 on my SS4 w/ TCX?
6.10) Can I run X11R6 on my SX, ZX, TCX, Creator, Creator3D or Elite3D?
| *6.11) I can't get perl 4.036 to compile or run.
6.12) I can't get sockets to work with perl.
6.13) I have problems compiling MH 6.8.3
6.14) I can't get XV 3.x to compile or run correctly.
6.15) What happened to NIT? What new mechanisms exist for low-level
network access?
6.16) Where are all the functions gone that used to be in libc?
6.17) I'm still missing some functions: bcopy, bzero and friends.
6.18) Can I use the source compatibility package to postpone porting?
6.19) Why doesn't readdir work? It chops the first two characters of
all filenames.
6.20) Why do I get undefined symbols when linking with curses/termcap?
6.21) Where are the Motif includes and libraries?
6.22) When I call semctl(), my program crashes. It works fine elsewhere.
6.23) Traceroute to Solaris 2.x machines gives many timeouts.
6.24) I have problems linking my application statically.
6.25) I get '"/usr/platform/SUNW,Ultra-1/lib/libc_psr.so.1": not in
executable format: format not recognized' from gdb on my Ultra.
6.26) How can I make Gdb work with Sun's C compiler?
6.27) Does Solaris have problems with dates in the year 2000 and after?
6.28) I can't seem to get older gcc releases to work under Solaris 2.6
6.29) Gdb doesn't fully work on Solaris 2.6.
6.30) I can't get gdb to compile with Sun's C compiler
7. KERNEL PARAMETERS
| 7.1) Where can I find a list of all Solaris kernel parameters?
| *7.2) How can I guard my system against stack buffer overflow exploits?
7.3) How can I restrict the number of processes per user?
7.4) What purpose does the maxusers variable serve?
7.5) How can I have a clock resolution better than 10ms?
| 7.6) How can I have more than 16 groups per user?
7.7) How can I disable _POSIX_CHOWN_RESTRICTED? My users want to chown files?
7.8) How can I make the NFS server ignore unprivileged clients?
8. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1. GENERAL
1.1) What's Solaris anyway?
Solaris(tm) is Sun's name for their UNIX-based user environment,
including the UNIX(tm) operating system, window system (X11-based),
and other stuff too.
Solaris 1.x is a retroactive (marketing?) name for SunOS 4.1.x
(x>=1), a version of UNIX that is BSD-like with some SVR4 features,
along with OpenWindows 3.0.
Solaris 2.x (which is what most everybody means by "Solaris")
includes SunOS 5.x, which is an SVR4-derived UNIX, along with
OpenWindows 3.x, tooltalk, and other stuff.
Solaris 7 and later are basically newer revisions of Solaris 2.x
with the leading "2." stripped.
This FAQ covers Solaris 2.x and later.
(See 1.5 for a chart with more info)
1.2) Why should I upgrade?
Solaris 2 is more compatible with the rest of the UNIX industry.
Other major UNIX vendors including IBM, HP, SGI, SCO, and others
are based on System V rather than on BSD (though some of them
are on SVR3, not SVR4). All but one commercial PC-based UNIXes
are System V based (and mostly SVR4); the only commercial exception
is from a small but interesting firm called BSDI.
Solaris 2 is where Sun has been putting almost all its development
for the last few years now. There will be no new development on
SunOS4; already much of Sun's add-on software is only available
for Solaris 2. Solaris 2 is the only supported MP OS on all but
the old 4/6x0-1x0 w/ Ross 605 modules. All the UltraSPARC systems
require Solaris 2.x.
Sun software is being released first for Solaris 2.x and usually
no longer for SunOS 4.1.x (No Sun JVM for 4.1.x)
Solaris 2.3 and above feature a standard X11R5 release of The X
Window System, a benefit for those who didn't like NeWS or the
V2/V3 OpenWindows server. (It's still called OpenWindows, but it is
the X11R5 server with Adobe DPS added in). It is as fast or faster
than MIT R5 or XC R6 (depending on the platform) and supports all
Sun graphics hardware.
Solaris 2 is more standards-compliant than Solaris 1/SunOS 4.
Solaris 2.6 is also Y2000 compliant, so upgrading to the latest
Solaris release is a must.
1.3) Should I move to Solaris 2.x now, or later, or never?
That depends - on you, your situation, your application mix, etc.
Some year SunOS4.1.x will go the way of the 3/50 - it'll still
be around, but Sun will no longer support it.
You don't have to upgrade immediately, but you should be
planning your upgrade path by now.
If you would rather stay with a BSD-style operating system, you
should consider OpenBSD or NetBSD. OpenBSD is regarded as the
world's most secure OS, and NetBSD is the world's most portable OS.
Both are BSD-style OSes in the spirit of 4.xBSD, which SunOS4 was
also derived from. Both run on SPARC, have SunOS emulation, and are
Y2K compliant.
1.4) What is Solaris 2? Is it really SVR4 based?
Solaris 2 is an "operating environment" that includes the
SunOS 5.x operating system and the OpenWindows 3.x window
environment.
SunOS 5.x is based on USL's SVR4.0. SVR4.0, in turn, was
developed jointly by AT&T and Sun while Sun was developing 4.1.0,
which is why things like RFS, STREAMS, shared memory, etc.,
are in SunOS 4.1.x, and why things like vnodes, NFS and XView
are in SVR4.0. (RFS, by the way, was dropped effective Solaris 2.3).
1.5) What machines does Solaris 2.x run on?
Solaris 2.0 only ran on desktop SPARCstations and a few other Sun
machines.
Solaris 2.1 and 2.4 and later come in two flavors, SPARC and "x86".
Solaris 2.1 (and 2.2, ...) for SPARC run on all SPARCstations and
clones, as well as all models of the Sun-4 family. The old FPU
on the 4/110 and 4/2x0 is not supported, so floating point
will be SLOW, but it does work.
Starting with 2.5 support for machines with kernel architecture
"sun4" is dropped. I.e., the machines on which "uname -m" and
"arch -k" return "sun4"; not the machines on which those commands
return sun4c, sun4m, sun4u or sun4d. The unsupported machine
include the sun4/110 (not to be confused with the SS4 @110MHz),
sun4/2xx, sun4/3xx and sun4/4xx. These are all VME based
deskside/server configurations.
All version of the SPARC PROMs should work under Solaris 2.x,
but you can run into the following problems:
1) No part of the boot partition may be offset more than 1 GB
into the disk, unless you have a PROM with rev 2.6 or better.
Note that the number behind the point is not a fraction, it's
an integer. Hence 3.0 > 2.25 > 2.10 > 2.9 > 2.1 > 2.0 > 1.6.
2) If booting diskless, you need a link in the /tftpboot
directory, "tftpboot -> .". Admintool will make that
link automatically.
A Solaris port for the PowerPC has been completed, and has been released,
effective Solaris 2.5.1. But support for it was dropped almost
immediately as it went nowhere.
Solaris 2.1, 2.4 and above for x86 have been released to end users.
It runs on a wide range of high-end PC-architecture machines.
"High-end" means: 16MB of RAM and an 80486 (or 33MHz or faster
80386DX). It will not run on your 4 MB 16MHz 386SX, so don't
bother trying! Also, floating point hardware (80387-style) is
absolutely required in 2.1. Starting with Solaris 2.4 for
x86, a fp CO-processor is no-longer required, though still
| recommended. With the world moving to PCI, MCA support
| is now gone and ISA support is dwindling.
The following OS revision chart maps the major Solaris releases.
Not all HW releases have been included as some are relatively
unimportant.
Solaris SunOS OpenWin Comments
1.0 4.1.1B 2.0
4.1.1_U1 2.0 sun3 EOL release (not named Solaris)
1.0.1 4.1.2 2.0 6[379]0-1[24]0 MP
1.1 4.1.3 3.0 SP Viking support
1.1C 4.1.3C 3.0 Classic/LX
1.1.1 4.1.3_U1 3.0_U1 4.1.3 + fixes + Classic/LX support
1.1.1 B 4.1.3_U1B 3.0_U1 1.1.1B + SS5/SS20 support
1.1.2 4.1.4 3_414 The "final" 4.x release (SS20 HS11)
2.0 5.0 3.0.1 sun4c only
2.1SPARC 5.1 3.1 Dec '92
2.1 x86 5.1 3.1 May '93
2.2SPARC 5.2 3.2 May '93
2.3SPARC 5.3 3.3 Nov '93
OpenWin 3.3 is X11R5 based: Display
PostScript instead of NeWS, no SunView.
It is still primarily OPEN LOOK.
The Spring 1995 OpenWin will be Motif
and COSE-based.
Statically linked BCP support
2.3 edition II SPARC Special Solaris 2.3 distribution for
Voyager and SparcStation 5
2.3 HW 8/94 SPARC Supports S24 (24 bits color for SS5),
POSIX 1003.2, Energy Start power management
and SunFastEthernet + patches.
2.4 5.4 3.4 From this moment on, the SPARC and x86
releases are in sync. Q3 '94
Adds motif runtime and headers (not mwm).
2.4 HW 11/94 First SMCC release of 2.4
2.4 HW 3/95 Second SMCC release of 2.4 (includes support
for booting from SSA)
2.5 5.5 3.5 UltraSPARC support, PCI support.
NFS V3, NFS/TCP, ACLs, CDE, Sendmail V8
name service cache, dynamic PPP
Posix threads, doors (new IPC mechanism)
many "BSD" type functions back in libc,
many "BSD" programs back in /usr/bin.
mixed mode BCP support (e.g., apps only
dynamically linked against libdl.so)
2.5 HW 1/96 Creator3D support (Creator3D/FFB+ is not
supported in 2.5 11/95, though the files
are present but of unsupported,
"mostly works", beta quality)
2.5.1 Ultra-2 support, Sun Enterprise
server support. Large (32bit UID)
support. 64bit KAIO (aioread64/aiowrite64),
3.75 GB of virtual memory.
Pentium/Pentium Pro optimizations.
(upto 25% for certain database apps)
Ultra ZX support.
Initial and last PowerPC desktop release.
2.5.1 HW 4/97 Support for Starfire (E10000) and Ultra-30
2.5.1 HW 8/97 Support for the Ultra-450
2.5.1 HW 11/97 Support for Ultra-5, Ultra-10 and Ultra-60 as
well as Elite3D
2.6 5.6 3.6 Largefiles, JVM + JIT, Hotjava, X11R6,
Web based answerbook, BOOTP/DHCP, SNMP agents,
VLSM, in-kernel sockets, XNTP, PAM,
CDE 1.2 as default desktop.
2.6 HW 3/98 Support for Ultra-5, Ultra-10, Ultra-60 Elite3d
and Starfire (E10K)
2.6 HW 5/98 DR Support for Starfire
7 5.7 3.6.1 64-bit OS support, logging UFS.
7 HW 11/99 Added UDF filesystem, consadm, X11R6.4 server
8 5.8 3.6.2 Dropped support for sun4c and Voyager;
added IPv6, IPsec, modular debugger (mdb), high
granularity interval timers, consadm, /dev/poll,
MAP_ANON, forced unmount, extended memory for
Intel, in-kernel mnttab, audio mixer, NFS
server logging, Starfire Interdomain networking,
Kerberos v5 client support, /proc tools core aware,
prstat (like top), perl and other free utilities
included, Apache, apptrace (symbolic library
call traces), loopback file mounts (lofi),
Intel CD boot, Intel large IDE disk support,
| 8 06/00
| 8 10/00 Sun Blade 100 & Sun Blade 1000 support.
| 8 01/01
| 8 04/01 Sun Fire server support, cdrw
1.6) Will my old applications from 4.1.x run on Solaris 2?
There is quite a bit of support in SunOS 5.x for running 4.1.x
binaries in an emulation mode called "Binary Compatibility"
(BCP). This works by dynamically linking the 4.1.x binaries
with a shared library that emulates the 4.1.x binary interface
on top of 5.x, so there is some overhead.
In Solaris 2.2 and earlier, the programs needed to be
fully dynamically linked.
In Solaris 2.3 and 2.4 fully statically linked programs are
supported as well. However, they won't obey nsswitch.conf, but
use the standard "use NIS if present, fall back to files" approach
of SunOS 4.x. Those programs may therefor require a "passwd:
compat" line and will only talk to NIS (or NIS+ in emulation mode)
or read from files.
Starting Solaris 2.5, mixed mode (partly static/partly dynamic)
executables are supported. Whether those programs will use
/etc/nsswitch.conf depends on precisely how much was dynamically
linked.
Be aware, though, that Sun may drop the binary compatibility
package some year. Try to wean yourself and your users from
depending on it, even if it means beating on your software
vendors to offer "native" Solaris2 applications.
But this will happen later, rather than sooner. Sun has not
yet announced End-of-Life of this feature.
1.7) Will my SPARC binaries run unchanged on UltraSPARC machines?
Yes. One of the most important goals of the UltraSPARC project
was *full* binary compatibility with existing SPARC
hardware and software.
If it isn't compatible, it's a bug!
There are some things you should keep in mind though: if you
broke the rules but got away with it in the previous generations
of SPARC machines, your luck may just have run out.
When developing the UltraSPARC it was discovered that some code
generators didn't leave all "reserved" bits in opcodes zero.
Such instructions are either illegal instructions which are trapped
and fixed in the UltraSPARC kernel or they are legal V9
instructions which will modify the program behaviour. All such
programs can be run through "cleanv8", a program designed
to correct the bogus instructions.
No instructions of the second category have been found, so even without
"cleanv8" you should be safe.
Another thing is the memory map on UltraSPARC, some applications
use an mmap(MAP_FIXED) call with an address that is illegal to use
on UltraSPARC. Such calls are inherently non-portable. Such
applications are relatively rare. One such applications is MAE,
which should work again after "setenv MAE_NOMMAP_ENGINE".
A third problem discovered is in device drivers that copy data
from/to userland directly, bypassing copyin(9f)/copyout(9f). On V8
SPARCs, such device drivers would work most of the time, but fail
mysteriously with panics when the system is stressed and page
mappings disappear; but on the UltraSPARC the drivers will fail
always. The kernel will panic and will tell you in which
module the panic occurred.
1.8) Will my old applications from SVR3 on the 386 run on Solaris 2/x86?
As with SPARC, there is an emulation mode that should run the
majority of well-behaved SVR3 (iBCS) binaries. Most
SVR3 stuff appears to work under Solaris 2.4.
Applications from any other vendor's standards-conforming
386/486 SVR4 should also run.
However, some vendors have made incompatible changes to their
SVR4 release and programs linked on those versions may not work.
Future versions of Solaris 2.x for Intel will address some/most
of those incompatibilities. Unixware is one of the offenders.
1.9) Where has the XXX command gone now?
There are too many of these changes to include in this FAQ, but
here are some key ones:
a. locations are often different
whoami /usr/ucb/whoami
make /usr/ccs/bin/make
hostid /usr/ucb/hostid
hostname /usr/ucb/hostname (or use uname -n)
Note that the last two commands are back in /usr/bin in
Solaris 2.5.
b. some old commands don't exist or have replacements
pstat -s swap -s (how much swap space?)
dkinfo /usr/sbin/prtvtoc raw_dev_name
trace truss
mount -a mountall
exportfs share
bar cpio -H bar (read only)
This information can be found in the Solaris 2.x Transition Guide -
Appendix A (commands), Appendix B (system calls), Appendix C (files).
This guide has undergone some changes from 2.0 -> 2.1 and beyond.
Several manuals have ended up being combined into this single
manual. This manual discusses administrative transition and
developer transition issues.
The command "whatnow" (for Solaris 2.x) is included in the
"Admigration Toolkit" package (see below). The Admigration
toolkit can be obtained from:
Admigration toolkit
Sample output:
% whatnow hostname
hostname 4.x command only
hostname /usr/ucb/hostname part of SCP package
hostname /usr/bin/uname -n alternate command
The whatnow command is limited in that it may point to
one command which may only implement a subset of the old
command (e.g., pstat points to sar, while pstat -s is identical
to swap -s)
1.10) When I upgrade, should I use SunInstall "upgrade", or start over?
You can't do a SunInstall "upgrade" from 4.1.x to Solaris2.
You can use the Admigration toolkit (q.v.) to help you move
from SunOS 4.1.x (Solaris 1, actually) to Solaris 2.
If you're moving from Solaris 2.x to 2.(x+y) [for small values of y]
then you can use "upgrade" to preserve your existing partitions
and local changes (including pkgadd!!), though it runs very
slowly (about 1.5-2x the time for a reinstall) and does require
that you have enough free space in / and /usr - make these big
when you first install! If you run out of space in one of
your partitions, you can always remove some components. Those
will not be upgraded and can be installed elsewhere after
initial upgrade (e.g., you can remove OW, Xil, Dxlib, manual
pages, etc)
There is no need to backout patches before upgrading.
In 2.2, the system would back them out for you, in 2.3 it
won't back out the patches but removes them without a trace.
An upgrade may not work as well as a full install.
E.g., the upgrade from 2.x (x<3) to 2.3 will leave
aliases for all your ptys in /devices/pseudo.
There's no need to upgrade to all intermediate releases.
You can go from Solaris 2.5 to Solaris 7 in one step.
But be careful in checking release notes, each release
typically only supports upgrades from a few earlier
releases and not all.
When you upgrade a system, you must make sure that you read
the release notes completely. Often, you'll need to upgrade
to new versions of Veritas, DiskSuite, etc.
1.11) Is Solaris 2.x reliable/stable enough to use?
The consensus seems to be that yes, it is.
Binary compatibility was much improved in 2.3. That will help
transition somewhat. The performance of 2.3 is adequate, though
some parts of the system are still slower than SunOS 4.1.x.
Solaris 2.3 is much more stable on MP machines than 2.2.
The Solaris 2.3 version of OpenWindows is much faster and much
more stable than the versions shipped with SunOS 4.1.x.
Solaris 2.1 and earlier should really be avoided. Solaris 2.2
should be avoided too, but some people need to stick to it
until some applications get ported (2.2 is the last release
with NeWS).
Solaris 2.3 still has some problems on high-end MP systems with
large numbers of interactive users. Solaris 2.4 and Solaris 2.5
have delivered increasingly more stable and more scalable multi
processing.
1.12) Why do some people dislike Solaris2?
There is a number of reasons why people dislike Solaris.
1) Change. In general people dislike change. Change requires
re-learning and retraining. Old system administration practices
no longer work. Commands have been replaced by other commands,
some commands behave differently. And they ask why the change was
necessary. SunOS 4.x worked for them.
2) Lack of migration support. Sun did not provide a lot of
tools to ease migration. Many applications wouldn't run in the
binary compatibility mode. The source compatibility mode was
probably compatible with some OS, but it certainly wasn't SunOS.
Lots of public domain and third party stuff that was needed wasn't
immediately available for Solaris. NIS+, buggy, resource hungry
and unstable replaced NIS in incompatible ways.
3) Missing functionality. When people migrate, at first they
don't tend to notice new functionality. Instead, they stumble
upon missing functionality such as screenblank, clear_colormap
and the like (but see 3.23). And perhaps worst of
all, no C compiler, not even a crippled one.
4) Slow and buggy. The initial Solaris releases didn't perform
at all well and were extremely unstable. This has improved
drastically, with Solaris 2.5 being stable and quick, even
without many patches.
1.13) Why do some people *like* Solaris2?
There are improvements in Solaris 2.x.
1) OpenWindows 3.3+ (in Solaris 2.3+). Includes X11R5 and
Display PostScript. X11R6 in Solaris 2.6, X11R6.4 from
Solaris 7 HW 11/99 onward.
2) Motif & CDE.
3) ANSI-C and POSIX development environment.
4) POSIX threads (2.5)
5) POSIX and X/OPEN command environment
6) UNIX 95 conformance.
7) UNIX 98 conformance (Solaris 7)
8) Posix shared memory and semaphores (2.6)
9) Multi-threaded kernel and real threads.
10) Real-time feature in the kernel
11) Faster clock ticks (optionally 1000Hz in 2.6)
12) Large files (2.6)
13) True multi-processing.
14) Goodies: vold, admintool and Wabi.
15) Easy patch installation/administration through installpatch/patchadd.
16) All software in easy to manage "packages".
17) Power management software & suspend/resume
18) Access control lists
19) NFS Version 3 and NFS over TCP (Solaris 2.5+).
| 20) A better automounter, autofs (no more /tmp_mnt and symlinks).
21) Jumpstart/autoinstall - hand off installation of clients.
22) Much better MP support.
23) Faster networking (ATM, fastethernet).
24) 64 bit OS (Solaris 7)
25) IPv6 (Solaris 8)
26) IPsec (Solaris 8)
27) Kerberos 5 client support (Solaris 8)
1.14) What is Sun doing to help me migrate?
Sun has recently started several projects to aid in the transition.
Their WWW starting point is:
Solaris Migration Initiative home page
The project is a combination of new and existing efforts and includes:
1) Porting PD software to Solaris 2.x
2) Solaris Migration Tool: (formerly known as Pipeline tool) a tool
to help you port your code.
3) Admigration Toolset. Tools to help you convert your SunOS 4
environment and to help you adjust to the new Solaris 2.x environment.
4) Appmap: a tool to simplify application administration in a mixed
SunOS 4.x/Solaris 2.x environment
5) Solaris Transition CD
6) Native Solaris NIS
7) LP tools (simplified LP administration through NIS)
1.15) Can I use my SunOS 4 disks on Solaris 2.x?
Yes you can. The on disk format in Solaris 2.x isn't
different from SunOS 4.1.x, as long as they've been formatted
under SunOS 4.1.x. Disks formatted on older fses need to be converted
with "fsck -c". If "dumpfs | head" (SunOS 4) or "fstyp -v | head"
(Solaris 2) lists "format dynamic" as one of the first lines, the
disk does not need to be converted.
UIDs > 60002 may give problems when moving disks from SunOS 4.x
to Solaris 2.x. This is fixed in a Solaris 2.5.1 which has
MAXUID defined as 2147483648. Note too that UID and GID 60001
and 60002 have been defined as nobody and noaccess on Solaris 2.x.
If the target SunOS 4 system uses such IDs, you need to renumber
them to avoid the collision
Moving disks the other way around may give problems: Solaris 2.5
supports on disks ACLs, and when MAXUID in 2.5.1 is increased
beyond 65535, that will give added difficulties.
1.16) How can I enable System V IPC? Ipcs says it isn't configured in.
There's nothing you need to do to enable System V IPC, but on boot
up "ipcs" always says:
IPC status from as of
Message Queue facility not in system.
Shared Memory facility not in system.
Semaphore facility not in system.
This just means that no one has yet used the Message Queue/Shared Memory
or Semaphore facility yet. They'll be loaded on first use.
If you really want to have them loaded at boot time, add the
following to /etc/system:
forceload: sys/msgsys
forceload: sys/semsys
forceload: sys/shmsys
In Solaris 7, ipcs will report the unloaded facilities as inactive rather
than "not present in system".
1.17) Solaris 7 is 64 bit, does that affect Solaris/IA-32?
No, Solaris 7 on Intel is still 32 bit; the only visible changes are
that all types are now compile environment safe.
|*1.18) Solaris 7 is 64 bit, does this mean I can no longer use my old SPARCs?
No, a 32 bit kernel is still supported on sun4c, sun4m, sun4d and even
| sun4u hardware using UltraSPARC I, II or IIi processors.
| The 32 bit kernel is not supported on systems with UltraSPARC IIe and
| UltraSPARC III processors or newer.
|1.19) Where can I download Solaris binaries from?
The latest Solaris binary release can be physically ordered or
download loaded from www.sun.com.
|+1.20) What Solaris release am I running on my system?
| Which Solaris release you are running on your system can be determined
| using the following command:
| cat /etc/release
| This will tell you which release you are running and when it was released.
| The more recent your system, the more info is contained in this file.
2. SOURCES OF INFORMATION
2.1) How can I RTFM when I don't have it anymore?
"RTFM" is an old saying: Read The "Fine" Manual. Sun still
sells printed manuals, but doesn't automatically distribute
them. As with all real UNIX systems, you do get a full set of
online "man" pages. A smaller, lighter, bookshelf-friendly :-)
set of CDROMs called "The AnswerBook"(tm) contains all the printed
documents in machine-readable (PostScript) form, with hypertext
capabilities and a keyword search engine. 90% of your
introductory questions are answered therein!
In Solaris 2.x the Answerbook set gets increasingly more
divided into pieces. It is currently split over a number of CDs,
currently (2.5.1):
Solaris 2.x CD:
Solaris 2.x User AnswerBook
Solaris Desktop 1.x
Wabi 2.x Answerbook
Solaris Common Desktop Environment AnswerBook 1.0.x
Updates for Solaris Operating Environment 2.x
Solaris 2.x on Sun Hardware Answerbook
Server Supplement
NSKit 1.2 answerbook
Solaris 2.x System Administrator AnswerBook
(Solaris 2.5.1 Supplemental System Admin AnswerBook)
Solaris 2.x Reference Manual AnswerBook
Solstice AutoClient & AdminSuite
Solstice AutoClient 2.0 AnswerBook
Solstice AdminSuite 2.2 AnswerBook
Solstice Online Disksuite
DiskSuite 4.0 AnswerBook
Solstice Backup
Solstice Backup 4.2 AnswerBook
Solaris 2.x Software Developer Kit
All programming manuals.
Solaris 2.x Driver Developer Kit
Device driver developer manuals.
Only the first two CDs ship with the desktop edition, the third is
SPARC specific. The last two CDs are part of two separate
products; the SDK and DDK. The rest is server only, though the
reference manuals are available in nroff source form.
There is some overlap between CDs.
As distributed with 2.1 and 2.2, the Answerbook search engine runs
only with the OpenWindows ("xnews") server, not with MIT X11.
In Solaris 2.3 through 2.5.1 answerbook uses X extension DPS. If
you are using the MIT server instead of what Sun provides, you'll
have to use one of several "answerbook workaround" scripts that are
in circulation. The AnswerBook distributed with 2.3 and later runs
with the OW3.3 X11R5+DPS server, so it should display on any
X11+DPS server, such as on DEC, IBM and SGI workstations.
In Solaris 2.6, answerbooks are distributed in SGML format; they
are presented through a special web server which is also able to
convert old Postscript answerbooks to HTML on the fly.
Sun has a site on the web that has many of the answerbooks
available.
Following a link at that site, you can order hardcopy from fatbrain.com
or download PDF books for printing or viewing.
You should buy (or print from within Answerbook) at least the
reference manual and the System and Network Administration
books, because if your system becomes disabled you won't be
able to run the Answerbook to find out how to fix it...
2.2) Why is "man -k" so confused?
Solaris man uses a manual page index file called "windex" in
place of the old "whatis" file. You can build this index with
catman -w -M
But, in 2.1, this will result in numerous "line too long" messages
and a bogus windex file in /usr/share/man, and a core dump in
/usr/openwin/man. (In 2.2, catman works in /usr/share/man, but
says "line too long" in /usr/openwin/man). To add injury to
insult, "man" normally won't show you a man page if it can't find
the windex entry, even though the man page exists.
Makewhatis, or better, getNAME, still can't deal with all manual
pages from the net.
Solaris 8 man will look for the manual page the hard way if it
cannot find it in an existing "windex" file.
Starting with Solaris 7 manual pages are being converted to
SGML format; the formatting is now a lot slower as there's an
extra sgml2roff step in between.
But wait, there's more! To see the read(2) man page, you can't
just type "man 2 read" anymore - it has to be "man -s 2 read".
Or, alias man to this little script:
#!/bin/sh
if [ $# -gt 1 -a "$1" -gt "0" ]; then
/bin/man -F -s $*
else
/bin/man -F $*
fi
2.3) What Software is available for Solaris 2.x?
Most commercial software that ran on 4.x either will run in BCP
mode, or is available for Solaris 2.x, or is being ported now.
Solaris 2.3 BCP mode finally supports statically-linked executables.
Solaris 2.5 BCP mode supports mixed mode (part static, part dynamic)
executables too.
Sun's web pages contain a searchable index
of commercial software and a link to an outside contractor
who gathers free and public domain programs. Sun's own software is
also prominently featured at www.sun.com.
A list of freeware (some "public domain", but mostly copyright-
but-freely-distributable) [as well as commercial software??]
that has been ported to Solaris 2.x
is posted monthly to the newsgroup comp.unix.solaris by
ric@coronacorp.com (Richard Steinberger). Look for this:
Subject: Solaris SW list. Monthly Post.
Some software that invariably needs minor tweaking after an OS upgrade
is included here specially. It's almost always necessary to recompile
it after an OS upgrade, but if that still doesn't give a working
version, make sure you check the archives for the latest version:
SymbEL/SE performance monitor
Top - a process monitor
Site carrying the latest version of Top
Lsof - list open files
Identd - a daemon that implements RFC1413
scsiinfo - a program that lists SCSI devices.
sysinfo - a system hardware information program.
If you use gcc (versions prior to 2.8 or versions build on Solaris
2.4 and earlier), it is important to remember that you must re-run
fixincludes or re-install gcc after an OS upgrade, or you'll be
compiling with the old include files which will essentially give
you the above programs as if compiled for a previous OS release.
2.4) What FTP/WWW sites do I need to know about?
www.sun.com
Sun's own WWW site, contains pointers to Sunsites, patches
and has lots of info, press releases etc, etc.
www.sun.com/downloads/
Solaris software catalogue, pointers to free software,
downloadable software from Sun, etc, etc.
Solaris transition home page
Sun's Solaris 2.x migration support
Solaris 2.x binaries
The Unofficial Guide to Solaris
Solaris 2.x/SPARC binaries in pkgadd format
Solaris 2.x/x86 binaries in pkgadd format
SunSites - Sun sponsored sites. Lots of good stuff there.
Sun SITE AskERIC at Syracuse University - Syracuse
Sun SITE Australia at Australian National University - Canberra
Sun SITE Central Europe at RWTH-Aachen - Germany
Sun SITE Chile at Universidad de Chile - Santiago
Sun SITE Czech Republic at Charles University - Prague
Sun SITE Denmark at Aalborg University - Aalborg
Sun SITE Digital Library at University of California at Berkeley
Sun SITE France at Conservatoire National des Arts-et-Metiers - Paris
Sun SITE Hong Kong at University of Science and Tech. - Hong Kong
Sun SITE Hungary at Lajos Kossuth University, Debrecen - Hungary
Sun SITE Italy at University of Milan - Milan
Sun SITE Israel at Hebrew University of Jerusalem - Jerusalem
Sun SITE Japan at Science University - Tokyo
Sun SITE Korea at Seoul National University - Seoul
Sun SITE Mexico at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico - Mexico
Sun SITE Nordic at Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan - Stockholm
Sun SITE Northern Europe at Imperial College - London
Sun SITE People's Republic of China at Tsinghua University - Beijing
Sun SITE Poland at Warsaw University - Warsaw
Sun SITE Russia at Moscow State University - Moscow
Sun SITE Thailand at Assumption University - Bangkok
Sun SITE Spain at Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, RedIRIS - Madrid
Sun SITE Singapore at National University of Singapore - Singapore
Sun SITE South Africa at University of the Witwatersrand - Johannesburg
Sun SITE USA at University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
Solaris at UMBC - Solaris tips & tricks by Vijay Gill
ftp.x.org - the master X11 site
ftp.quintus.com:/pub/GNU - GNU binaries
ftp.uu.net - UuNet communication archives
(mirrors abovementioned GNU binaries in systems/gnu/solaris2.3)
OpCom. (opcom.sun.ca) - run by Sun Microsystems' OpCom group - lots
of stuff. Here is some of the stuff that's online:
pub/AMToolkit.* - the Administration Migration (4.1.x to Solaris 2)
Toolkit
pub/binaries - binaries/man pages for Solaris 2.0 native binaries.
pub/newsletter - issues of the monthly OpCom newsletter.
pub/docs - assorted documentation, papers, and other information.
- all of the RFCs
pub/drivers - information related to device driver writing under
under Solaris 2.0 as well as a skeleton SCSI driver.
ls-lR.Z - compressed recursive listing of files available
on the server.
pub/tars - compressed tars.
pub/tmp - place for uploading things to the server.
pub/R5 - the unadultered MIT x11r5 distribution.
pub/x11r5 - port of X11r5 to Solaris 2.0, binaries, libraries
and headers. A compressed tar of this tree can
be found in tars.
prep.ai.mit.edu and the GNU mirrors
Joe Shamblin's x86 site at Duke
server.berkeley.edu:/pub/x86solaris - x86 stuff
ftp.wins.uva.nl
pub/solaris
- where the Solaris FAQ is kept, including an html
version.
pub/solaris/auto-install
- fully automated auto-install scripts, including
an explanation of exactly what a machine needs when
booting the installation, automated patch installation
and even post-install updates from your install tree,
which gives you an easy way to keep all your Solaris
machines in sync.
2.5) What other FAQ's do I need to know about?
1) Stokely Consulting's list of Sun FAQs
2) The Solaris for Intel FAQ
3) Obsolete, SunOS 4.x only: Sun Computer Administration Frequently Asked Questions
4) The "Solaris 2 Porting FAQ"
5) comp.windows.open-look - Anything related to OpenWindows or the
OPEN LOOK Graphical User Interface.
6) The Sun-Managers mailing list FAQ
maintained by John DiMarco .
7) See also the "Solaris SW list. Monthly Post" above and the
"whatlist" file.
2.6) What mailing lists should I get?
First, read all the USENET newsgroups with "sun" in their name :-)
1) The Florida SunFlash is a "closed" mailing list for Sun owners.
It contains mostly press releases from Sun and third-party
vendors. This list contains information on conferences such as
the Solaris Developer's Conference as well. It is normally
distributed regionally - to find out about a mail point in your
area, or for other information send mail to info-sunflash@Sun.COM.
Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@Sun.COM.
Archives are on solar.nova.edu, ftp.uu.net, sunsite.unc.edu,
src.doc.ic.ac.uk and ftp.adelaide.edu.au
2) The Sun Managers list is an unmoderated mailing list for
*emergency-only* requests. Subscribe and listen for a while,
and read the regularly-posted Policy statement BEFORE sending
mail to it, and to get a feel for what kinds of traffic it carries.
Send a message with "subscribe sun-managers" in the body to
majordomo@sunmanagers.ececs.uc.edu to subscribe.
3) The solaris x86 list. Subscribe/unsubscribe by sending a message
with subscribe/unsubscribe in the *BODY* of the message to
solaris-x86-request@mlist.eis.com. A digested version of the list
is also available. To subscribe send an email message to
solaris-x86-digest-request@mlist.eis.com.
There's also an archive of this list.
4) The Sun Security Bulletin announcement mailing list.
Low volume, announcement only list.
Subscribe by mailing security-alert@sun.com with subject
"SUBSCRIBE cws user@some.host"
2.7) What books should I read?
O'Reilly & Associates specializes in UNIX books. Their "UNIX
In A Nutshell" has been updated for SVR4 and Solaris 2.0. Get
their catalog by calling 800-998-9938 (1-707-829-0515) 7AM to
5PM PST.
SunSoft Press carries books specific to Solaris 2. Look for the
inset with your End User Media Kit that lists the most relevant ones.
Prentice-Hall has reprints of much of the AT&T documentation.
I'm not sure how much of this you need - a lot of the same
material is in the Answerbook (see above).
2.8) What hardware is supported by Solaris 2.x for Intel?
The complete list Solaris x86 hardware options can be found
on the Solaris Developer Connection site.
2.9) What is Wabi?
Wabi is Sun's MS-Windows-under-unix emulator.
The Wabi faqs can be obtained by sending an empty message to:
wabi-questions@East.Sun.com
The list of current Wabi apps can be obtained by mailing:
wabi-apps@East.Sun.COM
Applications that execute a lot of x86 code, run fastest on
Solaris 2.x_86, as no x86 emulation needs to be done.
Applications that are more windows intensive will run
better on machines with faster graphics hardware.
The currently shipping version of Wabi is Wabi 2.2, which
ships with Solaris 2.5.1.
Wabi only supports MS Windows 3.1 applications. Plans to support
Windows 95 have been shelved.
Wabi is no longer supported under Solaris 7
Wabi will not be made available for SunOS 4.1.x.
Reports indicate that Wabi support will be dropped by Sun
and replaced by some other PC on Sun product.
2.10) I'm running into some limits of SunOS 4.x, will upgrading to
Solaris 2.x help?
The answer depends on the limit you run into.
Solaris 2.x supports filesystems upto 1TB, SunOS 4.x requires
ODS 1.0 to support filesystems over 2GB.
Solaris 2.6 and later support files > 2GB.
Swap partitions and files are still limited to 2GB a piece as long
as you run a 32 bit kernel, but you can have multiple 2GB swap
partitions/files.
Solaris 2.x supports a virtually unlimited number of open
filedescriptors, SunOS 4.x only supports 256 (default) or 1024
(with Sun DBE 1.x).
Solaris 2.x supports an unlimited number of pseudo terminals.
SunOS 4.x supports at most 256.
Solaris 2.x supports more SCSI disks.
Solaris 2.x limits can be tuned in /etc/system, requiring just a
reboot. SunOS 4.x limits need to be tweaked in the config file and
| a new kernel needs to be built and installed.
Solaris 7 and later in 64 bit mode support > 4GB of address space
per processes.
64 bit processes in Solaris 7 and later can open more than 256 files
using stdio.
NOTE: when the above says "unlimited", it just means that there is
no "hard" limit, but performance may degrade over certain values.
E.g., setting the number of available fds very high, will cause
programs that loop closing all fds to be very slow in starting.
3. SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION
3.1) How much disk space do I need to install Solaris 2?
The FAQ maintainer's preference is for a merged root, /usr and /opt,
especially on smaller systems. But here's a table of sizes for
multiple partitionings.
Solaris 2.5.1 with root and usr only.
Install type root /usr
------------ ---- ----
Core 15 21
EndUser 28 99
Developer 30 192
Entire 72 217
Solaris 2.6 with root and usr only.
Install type root /usr
------------ ---- ----
Core 21 25
EndUser 33 181
Developer 38 398
Entire 44 448
Solaris 2.6 with root, var, opt and usr.
Install type root /var /opt /usr
------------ ---- ---- ---- ----
Core 21 3 1 25
EndUser 22 6 9 181
Developer 22 9 9 398
Entire 23 10 13 448
The following table is based on teaching and system administration
experience.
Solaris 2.6 Recommended minimum partition sizes, real world.
Install type root /var* /opt** /usr***
------------ ---- ---- ---- ----
Core 50 150 200 200
EndUser 50 150 200 300
Developer 50 150 200 500
Entire 50 150 200 600
Notes:
(*) Even on the smallest systems, it is recommended to leave a
great deal of room on /var. This will allow for the limited use of
print client spooling, cron, uucp, auditing and growth for the
pkgadd database. Setting up as a mail, news, NIS, NIS+ or print
server requires substantial additional room on /var.
(**) /opt holds all non-OS application software. Sizing is total
of all current application software plus size of known future
application software plus 20-30%.
(***) /usr should be relatively unchanging, except on a developer
system. Still, to make it too small will require later balancing
acts, therefore the numbers reflect approximately 150MB of extra
space.
3.2) How can I convert all my local changes that I've made over the
years into their corresponding forms on Solaris 2?
1) Do it by hand. You did document every single change and
check it into RCS, didn't you?
2) Automate it, using the AMToolkit (Administration Migration
Toolkit) from the OpCom FTP server (q.v.)!
3.3) What are "packages"?
A SVR4 mechanism for "standardizing" the installation of
optional software. Most vendors are expected to use this
format for distributing add-on software for Solaris 2.x.
Packages can be installed/deinstalled with pkgadd/pkgrm which
are standard SVR4 items, or with swm (CRT) or swmtool (GUI-based)
which are provided only in Solaris 2.
Note that the "pkg" system keeps lots of files in /var/sadm/install,
and in particular the file "contents", which is hundreds of KB,
and that there are two copies of it while pkgadd is running, so you
needs lots of free space where /var is, typically the root.
This file must be kept around if you want, for example, to use
pkgrm to remove a package, or pkgchk to verify months later that
all of a a package's files are still intact.
Summary of pkg* commands:
pkginfo - test for presence of package.
pkgadd -d //Solaris_2.3
- add missing packages
pkgrm - remove packages.
pkgchk -q - test for existence of package
pkgchk [pkg] - check installed packages for
integrity.
3.4) Why can't I write in/mount over /home?
SunOS 5.x is delivered with the "automounter" enabled. The
automounter is designed for NFS sites, to simplify maintenance of
the list of filesystems that need mounting. However it is a burden
for standalone sites.
The automounter takes over /home and in effect becomes the NFS
server for it, so it no longer behaves like a normal directory.
This is normally a Good Thing as it simplifies administration if
everybody's home directory is /home/, regardless of their
physical location.
If you want to continue to use the automounter, edit /etc/auto_master
and comment out the line starting with "/home". Then run the
"automount" command which will cause automountd to reload the maps.
To kill it off for standalone or small networks running Solaris 2.3
or later, you can stop automountd by running "/etc/init.d/autofs
stop". Prevent it from starting at boot time by renaming the file
/etc/rc2.d/SXXautofs to /etc/rc2.d/sXXautofs, where XX are two
digits depending on the OS release. (If you change your mind, just
rename it back)
In Solaris 2.2, the procedure is different. You need to comment
out the three lines in /etc/init.d/nfs.client that start "if" (from
the if to the fi!!), and reboot (Solaris 2.2)
To learn about it, read the O'Reilly book "Managing NFS and
NIS", or ftp the white paper 'The Art of Automounting". from
sunsite.unc.edu in the directory /pub/sun-info/white-papers.
3.5) Why can't I access CDs or floppies?
Solaris 2.2 introduced a new scheme for automatically mounting
removable media. It consists of a program "vold" (volume daemon) which
sits around watching for insertions of floppies and CD's,
handles ejects, talks to the file manager, and invokes a second
program called "rmmount" (removable media mounter) to mount the disk.
Note that on most SPARCstations, you must run "volcheck" whenever
you insert a floppy, as the floppy hardware doesn't tell SunOS that
a floppy was inserted and polling the drive would wear it out
pretty quickly.
Advantages of this scheme:
- no longer need root; users can mount and unmount at will.
- can do neat tricks like automagically start "workman" or
other Audio CD player when audio CD inserted.
- extensible - developers can write their own actions.
Drawbacks:
- can no longer access /dev/rfd0 to get at floppy; must use
longer name like /vol/dev/rdsk/floppy0
- similarly, CD's get mounted on /cdrom/VOLNAME/SLICE, e.g.,
/cdrom/solaris_2_2/s0 is slice 0 of the Solaris 2 CD
(nice that it does mount all the partitions, though!).
To read or write a non-filesystem floppy (tar, cpio, etc),
put in the diskette and run "volcheck" from the commandline or
click "Check for Floppy" in the filemgr to get it noticed; then access
/vol/dev/rfd0/unlabeled (e.g. "tar tvf /vol/dev/rfd0/unlabeled").
[Solaris 2.3 and later: /vol/dev/rdiskette0/unlabeled, or
/vol/dev/aliases/floppy0.]
If you want the old behavior, remove the /etc/rc2.d/S*volmgt
link, and reboot.
3.6) Why are there no passwords in /etc/passwd?
System V Release 4 includes a feature called "shadow passwords".
The encrypted passwords are moved out into a shadow password file
(called /etc/shadow in this release) that is NOT publicly readable.
The passwd file has always been readable so that, for example, ls -l
could figure out who owns what. But having the passwd encryptions
readable is a security risk (they can't be decrypted but the bad guy
can encrypt common words and names etc. and compare them with the
encryptions).
The Shadow Password feature is mostly transparent, but if you
do any passwd hacking you have to know about it! And DO make
sure that /etc/shadow is not publicly readable!
3.7) Why can't I rlogin/telnet in as root?
>... when I try to rlogin as root ...
>it gives me the message "Not on system console
>Connection closed.". What have I left out?
Solaris 2 comes out of the box a heck of a lot more secure than
Solaris 1. There is no '+' in the hosts.equiv. root logins are not
allowed anywhere except the console. All accounts require passwords.
In order to allow root logins over the net, you need to edit the
/etc/default/login file and comment out or otherwise change the
CONSOLE= line.
This file's CONSOLE entry can actually be used in a variety of ways:
1) CONSOLE=/dev/console (default) - direct root logins only on console
2) CONSOLE=/dev/ttya - direct root logins only on /dev/ttya
3) CONSOLE= - direct root logins disallowed everywhere
4) #CONSOLE (or delete the line) - root logins allowed everywhere
/etc/hosts.equiv is still supported, but there is no default.
3.8) How can I have a user without a password?
In addition to removing the password from /etc/shadow, you need
to take one of the following steps:
Edit /etc/default/login and comment out PASSREQ=YES or change it
to PASSREQ=NO. This allows *all* users to remove their password!
The second way is to give a particular user no password with the
following entry in /etc/shadow:
user::9092:9999:9999::::
3.9) How can I set up anonymous FTP?
If you need help, ftp the file "ftp.anon" from
ftp://ftp.math.fsu.edu/pub/solaris/ftp.anon.
ftpd(1M) is nearly complete when it comes to setting
up anonymous ftp. It only leaves out /etc/nsswitch.conf. [S2.3]
Additionally, you must make sure that the filesystem ~ftp resides
on is not mounted with the nosuid option. This is because the nosuid
option also disables the kernel honoring device files which are
required in the chroot environment for ~ftp.
For security reasons, it is important that no files under ~ftp are
owned by ftp. If they are, anonymous users can modify them.
In Solaris 2.5 and later, you will need to copy /usr/lib/libmp.so.*
as well as provide a /dev/ticlts (for wu-ftpd).
3.10) How can I print from a Solaris 2 (or any System V Release 4) system
to a SunOS4.x (or any other BSD) system?
The easiest way would be using the GUI-based Admintool which has a
Printer Manager that is supposed to be able to do all this and
more.
Hmmm, the lp system is totally different than what you're used to.
The System V Line Printer System is a lot more, well, flexible.
A cynic might say "complicated". Here's a very quick guide --
see the man pages for each of these commands for the details.
Let's say your Solaris2 workstation is called "sol" and the
4.1.x server is called "bertha" and you want the printer name
to be "printer" (imaginative, eh?).
sol# lpsystem -t bsd bertha # says bertha is a bsd system
sol# lpadmin -p printer -s bertha -T unknown -I any
# creates "printer" on "sol"
# to be printed on "bertha"
# The following two commands are no longer needed in 2.6 and later:
sol# accept printer # allow queuing
sol# enable printer # allow printing
sol# lpstat -t # check the status
Finally, if that's your only printer, make it the default:
sol# lpadmin -d printer
On some systems you may have to turn on the port monitor.
3.11) How can I print to a non-Postscript/non-ascii printer?
The cheapest way to do this is using a printer setup based on
Ghostscript.
When installing Ghostscript, make sure that it supports your
printer *and* make sure that you include support for your
specific printer in Ghostscript.
Then go to "Setting up a GS printer under Solaris",
and follow the instructions there.
3.12) How can I print to a networked printer?
Before Solaris 2.6, you either needed special software like JetAdmin
or get a printer that supported the BSD print protocol and set your
system up as a BSD client.
Starting with Solaris 2.6, there's a new lp "model" script,
"netstandard". This script allows you to print to remote BSD
type printers as well as over raw TCP/IP connections. It's used
like this:
# Raw TCP
lpadmin -p -m netstandard -o protocol=tcp -o dest=host:port \
-v /dev/null
# BSD
lpadmin -p -m netstandard -o protocol=bsd -o dest=host \
-v /dev/null
Enable/accept and you're all set.
When using netstandard, all filtering is done locally. When configured
as a BSD print client, filtering isn't done locally as only print
servers should filter jobs.
3.13) Why does lp complain about invalid content types?
For better or for worse, you need to know about printer content types.
See the man page for "lpadmin".
To get transparent mode, try this:
sol# lpadmin -I any -p printer
3.14) My jobs stay in the queue after printing.
It's a known bug, and looks fixed in 2.5.
There's also a number of lpsched patches out for
Solaris: 101025-xx (2.2), 101317-xx (2.3),
101959-xx (2.4) and 101960-xx (2.4/x86).
Make sure you install those.
Regardless of what other patches you apply, if you have a printer
connected to your system running Solaris 2.4 or later, and if that
printer uses NeWSprint software, you must apply patch 102113-xx.
This patch is included on the Solaris CD in 2.4 and later
releases. This patch is also required if you are running Solaris
2.3 with kernel jumbo patch 101318-55 or later. Note that this is
a NeWSprint patch, not a Solaris patch, and hence it will never be
integrated into any Solaris release.
"lpstat" on the clients on a regular basis, for some reason
this clears the old files from the queue directories.
3.15) Are there any alternatives to the system V spooler?
Sun has a new printing product available, "SunSoft Print Client".
It is the standard 2.6 print system and co-shipped with 2.5.
It has many new features, including printcap-like printer
configurations that can be shared via NIS, and currently
the ability to be configured so that lpsched does not have to
be run anymore on client-only systems (although you still need to
run lpsched in order for admintool to work.)
Alternatively, you can get a Solaris port of the BSD lpr system
from the following FTP site (get lpr-sol2-*.tar.gz):
ftp.eng.auburn.edu:/pub/doug
or LPRng
3.16) What happened to /dev/MAKEDEV? How do I add devices?
Device drivers are linked in dynamically. When you add new
devices, just shutdown the system and do
boot -r # use drive spec if not default disk
to *r*ebuild the /devices and /dev directories.
| When you're adding a device without rebooting or forgot to do
| a reconfigure boot, you can run the "configure devices" commands.
| In Solaris 8 it is as simple as running "devfsadm" without arguments.
| Older solaris releases don't have "devfsadm" and you need to run a
| few commands, e.g., if you've just added a SCSI disk, you
| run the following commands (as the superuser):
/usr/sbin/drvconfig
/usr/sbin/devlinks
/usr/sbin/disks # or /usr/sbin/tapes for tapes
/usr/ucb/ucblinks # Compatibility links
exit 0
Note that this only works if you already have at least one SCSI disk on
the system. (This is because the above just makes symbolic links and
things, it does not load up the SCSI driver kernel modules, etc.)
3.17) Why isn't my tape/cd player or new disk/device recognized?
Devices must be turned on and present when you configure
the system. After adding devices you must boot -r with all
the devices turned on. See also 3.16
3.18) What happened to /etc/rc and /etc/rc.local?
They're now fragmented into 12 million tiny little pieces. Look in
the following files to get oriented:
/etc/inittab - defines which programs init starts and when.
/sbin/rcS, /etc/rcS.d/* - booting stuff
/sbin/rc2, /etc/rc2.d/*,
/sbin/rc3, /etc/rc3.d/* - stuff for multi-user startup.
Note that all files in /etc/rc*.d/* are hardlinked from
/etc/init.d (with better names), so you should grep in there.
There are many "run levels" to the System V init; the run
level 3 is normally used for "multi user with networking."
When executing the scripts in an /etc/rc?.d directory, the
K* scripts are executed first, followed by the S* scripts.
Scripts ending in .sh are executed in the same shell and can
be used to set environment variables used further on in the
same directory.
A basic startup script looks like this:
#!/bin/sh
# Sample init.d script.
# Install a copy under /etc/init.d/your-daemon
# make links to /etc/rc2.d/Sxxyour-daemon (or rc3.d)
# and /etc/rc[01].d/Kxxyour-daemon.
# Scripts ending in .sh are executed with the sh "." command.
# Scripts not ending in .sh are executed as "sh script"
case "$1" in
start)
#... commands to start daemon ....
;;
stop)
#... commands to stop daemon ....
;;
esac
3.19) Can't I have /etc/rc.local back?
No. You can never have rc.local back the way it was. But then, it
never really *was* purely a "local" rc file. To have a real
"local" rc file with just your changes in it, copy this file
into /etc/init.d/rc.local, and ln it to /etc/rc3.d/S99rc.local.
Put your startup stuff in the "start" section.
#!/sbin/sh
# /etc/init.d/rc.local - to be linked into /etc/rc3.d as
# S99rc.local -- a place to hang local startup stuff.
# started after everything else when going multi-user.
# Ian Darwin, Toronto, November, 1992
# As with all system changes, use at own risk!
case "$1" in
'start')
echo "Starting local services...\c"
if [ -f /usr/sbin/mydaemon ]; then
/usr/sbin/mydaemon
fi
echo ""
;;
'stop')
echo "$0: Not stopping any services."
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $0 { start | stop }"
;;
esac
3.20) Why are there two versions of shutdown?
SVR4 (hence SunOS 5.x) tries to make everybody happy. The
traditional (slow) System V "shutdown" runs all the rc0.d/*
shell scripts with "stop" as the argument; many of them run
ps(!) to look for processes to kill. The UCB "shutdown" tells
init to kill all non-single-user processes, which is about two
orders of magnitude faster. In old versions of Solaris (2.2 and
before) the UCB version did everything it should *except* actually
halt or reboot.
If you run a database (like Oracle) or INN, you should
install a special /etc/rc0.d/K* script and make sure you
always shutdown the long way.
3.21) When will somebody publish a package of the BSD (4.3BSD Net2)
"init", "getty", and "rc/rc.local", so we can go back to life
in the good old days?
Getty should be easy and was reportedly done at a number of
sites. The port monitor isn't everyones favorite. But given
that you can do much more with the SVR4 init, why would
you want to change back? It would be much more trouble than
it's worth.
3.22) What has happened to getty? What is pmadm and how do you use it?
I was hoping you wouldn't ask. PMadm stands for Port Monitor Admin,
and it's part of a ridiculously complicated bit of software
over-engineering that is destined to make everybody an expert.
Best advice for workstations: don't touch it! It works out of the box.
For servers, you'll have to read the manual.
This should be in admintool in Solaris 2.3 and later.
For now, here are some basic instructions from Davy Curry.
"Not guaranteed, but they worked for me."
To add a terminal to a Solaris system:
1. Do a "pmadm -l" to see what's running. The serial ports on the
CPU board are probably already being monitored by "zsmon".
PMTAG PMTYPE SVCTAG FLGS ID
zsmon ttymon ttya u root \
/dev/term/a I - /usr/bin/login - 9600 ldterm,ttcompat ttya \
login: - tvi925 y #
2. If the port you want is not being monitored, you need to create a
new port monitor with the command
sacadm -a -p PMTAG -t ttymon -c /usr/lib/saf/ttymon -v VERSION
where PMTAG is the name of the port monitor, e.g. "zsmon" or "alm1mon",
and VERSION is the output of "ttyadm -V".
3. If the port you want is already being monitored, and you want to
change something, you need to delete the current instance of the port
monitor. To do this, use the command
pmadm -r -p PMTAG -s SVCTAG
where PMTAG and SVCTAG are as given in the output from "pmadm -l". Note
that if the "I" is present in the field (as it is above),
you need to get rid of it.
4. Now, to create a specific instance of ttymon for a port, issue the
command:
pmadm -a -p PMTAG -s SVCTAG -i root -fu -v 1 -m \
"`ttyadm -m ldterm,ttcompat -p 'PROMPT' -S YORN -T TERMTYPE \
-d DEVICE -l TTYID -s /usr/bin/login`"
Note the assorted quotes; Bourne shell (sh) and Korn (ksh) users
leave off the second backslash!
In the above:
PMTAG is the port monitor name you made with "sacadm", e.g. "zsmon".
SVCTAG is the service tag, which can be the name of the port, e.g.,
"ttya" or "tty21".
PROMPT is the prompt you want to print, e.g. "login: ".
YORN is "y" to turn software carrier on (you want this for directly
connected terminals" and "n" to leave it off (you want this
for modems).
TERMTYPE is the value you want in $TERM.
DEVICE is the name of the device, e.g. "/dev/term/a" or "/dev/term/21".
TTYID is the line you want from /etc/ttydefs that sets the baud rate
and stuff. I suggest you use one of the "contty" ones for
directly connected terminals.
5. To disable ("turn off") a terminal, run
pmadm -d -p PMTAG -s SVCTAG
To enable ("turn on") a terminal, run
pmadm -e -p PMTAG -s SVCTAG
Ports are enabled by default when you "create" them as above.
For more details, see:
Celeste's Tutorial on Solaris 2.x Modems & Terminals
3.23) How do I get the screen to blank when nobody's using it?
Under 4.1.x you invoke screenblank in /etc/rc.local, but there's no
screenblank in Solaris 2.x. Sun recommends that you
have everybody put `xset s on' in their .xinitrc, but this
may be hard to police, and in any event it won't work when nobody is
logged in. The simplest workaround is to copy /usr/bin/screenblank
from 4.1.x and run it in binary compatibility mode. See ``What
happened to /etc/rc and /etc/rc.local?'' for how to invoke it.
Another possibility is to use xdm or dtlogin. That way the X server
will continue to run and the screen will be blanked by it.
The 4.1.x screenblank didn't work for us. We use Jef Poskanzer's
freeware screenblank.
| Because of a bug in Solaris 2.3, you'll may have to
specify -DHAVE_POLL=0 when compiling this version.
Solaris 2.4 comes with power management software for those systems
with a soft-switchable power supply. That may suit your needs
better than screenblank. In Solaris 2.5 the software can remove
the sync signal from your monitor causing newer monitors to go
in energy saving standby mode. The Solaris 2.4 version had problems
reenabling the monitor or graphics card.
The power-management software is on the SMCC Updates CD [2.4 2.5]
The power-management software can be used to switch off just the
screen, by putting the following in the power.conf file:
# Name Threshold(s) Logical Dependent(s)
/dev/kbd 600
/dev/mouse 600
/dev/fb 0 0 /dev/kbd /dev/mouse
Make sure you mark the "autoshutdown" line with "noshutdown"
if you want keep your machine running.
The /usr/openwin/bin/dtpower utility can change these settings for
you. (Solaris 2.5)
3.24) And what about screendump, screenload and clear_colormap?
You can FTP Jef's screenload, screendump, etc., if you need that
functionality, and for free you get a pixrect (clone) library.
Get one of these:
http://www.acme.com/software/raster-pixrect/
ee.lbl.gov:/raster-pixrect_30dec93.tar.Z
The 4.1.x versions of these programs will not run under
Solaris 2.2 or later. The pixrect BCP library is no
longer supported.
3.25) Where did etherfind go?
There is a replacement for etherfind, but it has changed name;
in fact it's a whole new program. It IS better. To find it,
though, you would have to realize that network snooping is not
really Ethernet-specific. To end the suspense :-), here it is:
% man -k snoop
snoop snoop (1m) - capture network packets and inspect them
%
It works differently - it has an immediate mode, a
capture-to-disk mode, and a playback-from-disk mode. Read the
man page for details.
The capture file format is described in RFC 1761.
3.26) Can I run SunOS 4.1.x on my SPARC Classic, LX, SS5, SS4, SS20, Voyager,
SS1000, SC2000, CS6400, Ultra?
The Classic, LX and the single processor models of the SS20
are still supported under some version of SunOS 4.1.x.
A lot of people wanted these machines but only if they ran
SunOS 4.1.x. When the Classic/LX came out, clone manufacturers
were able to provide SunOS 4.1.x with it, Sun came out with
SunOS 4.1.3C some time later.
The Classic, LX, SS4, SS5 and SS20 are supported in the most recent
Solaris 1.x release, SunOS 4.1.4 (Solaris 1.1.2). The Classic and
LX are supported since 4.1.3C (release for LX & Classic only), the
SS20/SS5 since release 4.1.3_U1 rev B (Solaris 1.1.1B). The SS4
and SS20 with HyperSPARC since 4.1.4. Note that none of these OS
versions support SuperSPARC MP or any of the new graphics hardware
(ZX, TZX, SX, S24). The TCX adapter is only supported as a
cgthree, and SunOS 4.x doesn't use all its acceleration features.
The Voyager is not supported under SunOS 4.1.x, too many new device
drivers have been added plus the suspend resume feature.
The XDbus machines SS1000/SC2000 are also not supported under
SunOS 4.1.x. Support for their kernel architecture and XDBus is
missing in 4.x.
The UltraSPARC based machines are not supported under SunOS 4.1.x.
The new supervisor mode instructions, the new MMU, buses and devices
are not supported under 4.1.x.
Sun acquired the Business Systems Division of Cray Research and now
supports the Cray CS6400, a 64 SuperSPARC machine that runs a modified
version of Solaris 2.x, known as "Cray Solaris".
The largest Solaris 2.x machine you can currently buy from Sun is the
Sun Enterprise 10000, a machine that supports upto 64 UltraSPARC
cpus, 64 I/O channels and 64 GB of memory at the same time.
Fujitsu sells an even larger machine, the AP-3000,
a system with upto 2048 UltraSPARC cpus @300MHz.
3.27) The "find" program complains that my root directory doesn't exist?
Yes! Actually, messages like
find : cannot open /: No such file or directory.
are due to a bug in the tree walking function (nftw(3)).
Fixed in 2.4 and in the 2.3 kernel jumbo patch 101318 (-41 or later)
3.28) I'm having troubles with high-speed input on the Sparc serial
ports. What should I do?
Try using UUCP. The Solaris 2.x sparc serial driver has
trouble receiving data at or above 9600 bps. Symptoms include
sluggish response, `NOTICE: zs0: silo overflow' console
messages, sending spurious control-Gs to the serial port, and
applications that cannot be killed even with `kill -9'. This
problem surfaces in many applications, including Kermit and
tip. UUCP seems immune, though, because its protocol throttles
input sufficiently.
People have reported success in later releases of Solaris (2.3+).
Solaris 2.5 supports much higher baudrates and hardware flowcontrol
in two directions. The latter is also available as a patch for
2.3 (102028) and 2.4 (102845, note that this patch conflicts with
patch 102062-08, which should be installed first if at all).
The zs device can be set to 38400bps in 2.4 and earlier
and 76800 in 2.5 and later.
The latest UltraSPARC systems with PCI have a newer serial chip,
with the "se" device driver. It can sustain speeds of upto 400k bps.
3.29) How do I make ksh or csh be the login shell for root?
Root's shell is /sbin/sh, which is statically linked.
Don't just insert a 'c' before "sh" as previously, as that would
look for /sbin/csh, which doesn't exist. Don't just change it to
/bin/csh, since that's really /usr/bin/csh, which is dynamically
linked, because:
1) /usr may not be mounted initially, and then
you're in deep (the shared libraries are in /usr!), and
2) There is code in the startup scripts that assumes that
everything critical is in /etc/lib, not /usr/lib.
Approach with caution!
Whenever you change root's shell, make sure you do it using
vipw or "passwd -e". Both programs will check for a valid
(in the sense of /etc/shells) file.
Safer bet - have an alternate root account, like "rootcsh",
with uid 0, and /bin/csh as its shell. Put it after root's entry in
the passwd file. Only drawback: you now have to remember to
change all of root's passwords at the same time.
Third bet - in root's .profile, check if /usr is mounted and, if so,
exec /bin/ksh or whatever.
An even better bet - leave root's shell alone, and use the
sudo command for doing things as root.
3.30) What is this message: "automount: No network locking on host,
contact administrator to install server change."?
The other machine (an NFS server) is running 4.1.x and needs a
patch from Sun to update its network lock daemon (lockd). If
you don't install the patch on the server, file locking will
not work on files mounted from "thathost". The lockd jumbo patch
fixes a bunch of other lock manager problems, so it may be a
Good Thing To Get; however, it may also cause the machine on
which the patch is installed to have trouble talking to servers
with no patch or older patches, so Be Warned.
The lockd patches are: 100988 (4.1.3), 101817 (4.1-4.1.2)
101784 (4.1.3_U1), 102264 (4.1.4) and 100518 (for Online: Disksuite).
Make sure you install the latest version of those patches.
3.31) I have all kinds of problems with SCSI disks/RAIDs under Solaris 2.x
They worked fine under SunOS 4.x.
For a quick fix, append this line to /etc/system and reboot:
set scsi_options & ~0x80
This turns off Tagged Command Queuing, a SCSI feature that is
improperly implemented in many older drives and can cause problems
between Suns and some RAID implementations (for a special note on
RAID, see the end of this question)
NOTE: this will seriously degrade performance on disks that do
properly support tagged command queuing. Setting the SCSI options
per broken target is therefor the preferred solution.
In Solaris 2.4 and later you can set those options per SCSI
bus. See isp(7) and esp(7).
For some disks, all you need to do is decrease the maximum number of
queued commands:
set sd:sd_max_throttle=10
In later Solaris releases you can specify scsi_options per (broken)
target or per SCSI bus. See esp(7d), isp(7d), from which this example
/kernel/drv/esp.conf file is derived:
name="esp" parent="/iommu@f,e0000000/sbus@f,e0001000/espdma@f,400000"
reg=0xf,0x800000,0x40
target1-scsi-options=0x58
scsi-options=0x178;
Certain hardware RAIDs support a number of different LUNs (logical
disks) but share a common set of I/O buffers between them. This
can cause SCSI QFULL conditions on devices without any commands
queued. Since the algorithm is to retry the command when a
previous command is completed, Solaris doesn't handle this
situation very well.
The workaround is to decrease sd_max_throttle such that there's
always at least 1 slot available for each LUN. E.g., if you have 3
LUNs and your RAID supports upto 64 outstanding commands,
sd_max_throttle must be at most 31. (Any two LUNs can get 31
requests and you still have two slots over for number 3)
Decreasing sd_max_throttle was seen to improve performance due to
better load balancing among LUNs on some hardware RAIDs.
3.32) How do I make Solaris2 use my old ADAPTEC ACB-4000 and
Emulex MD-21 disk controllers?
As with any hardware addition, first try the obvious (boot -r
after installing and power-cycling everything).
The adaptec is no longer supported; man -s7 sd no longer even
lists it! So I guess they go over the cliff. Either that, or
take the drives out and put them on a PC, where ST506 MFM
drives are still supported.
The MD21 should work, though some people report that SCSI
doesn't work in 4/260 boxes (bug-id #1118752), but that's
fixed in 2.3 and later.
3.33) Should I wait installing the latest Solaris release until there
are enough patches?
Several things have been done differently during the development of
Solaris 2.5 and later. Many internal users run versions of the
Solaris release under development no more than one or two weeks
old. A number of large customers runs beta releases on production
systems, in exchange for virtually unlimited engineering support
for those machine.
Coupled with some other development policies this has resulted in
a release of very high quality that doesn't come with 36 patches
on the first release CD, although there are always things found
when the release is closed. Patches for older unbundled products are
needed for each Solaris release.
Recent Solaris releases run most everything without requiring patches.
3.34) Why are there so many patches for Solaris 2.x?
Patches are released for three reasons: bug fixes, new hardware
support (sometimes also requires new packages) and new features.
As releases stay out in the field longer, more bugs are discovered.
Many bugs are fixed during the development cycle and are "fixed in the
next release". However, for many customers an upgrade is out of the
question, so more and more patches get released.
In the early Solaris days, patches were often combined into
"jumbo" patches. This reduced the number of patches somewhat,
but made maintenance more difficult as it would require
re-cutting a patch consisting of 50 modules when you fix just one
bug in one module. Patches are now only merged if there is a
two-way dependency.
3.35) What are the ``mandatory'' patches I keep hearing about?
The mandatory patches weren't mandatory, so they've been relabeled.
They're now called ``recommended'' patches.
The recommended patches are those patches Sun recommends for
trouble free system operation. With those patches installed,
your chances on trouble free operation are higher. That doesn't
mean you will run into trouble without them.
These recommended patches can be anonymously ftp'ed from
official Sun ftp sites.
3.36) Which patches should I apply?
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." In general you should only
apply patches for security related problems. For each and every
other patch you must consider two things: have I encountered this
bug or am I very likely to encounter this bug in the near future.
If neither is true, it is often best not to apply the patch.
If you have a working system, why patch it? Patches do occasionally
introduce new bugs and not applying patches is the best way to
avoid those new bugs.
You should, however, install all patches that come with the
Solaris 2.x CDs. Those patches have been tested together and
supplement the base OS to the supported level. Some systems won't
even boot if those patches aren't installed first.
Y2000, security and even recommended patches should also be
installed and updated on a regular basis.
The latest Solaris releases come with packages "pre-patched" as
well as a "Maintenance Update" CD. The "MU" CDs are meant to
be used on systems with older HW releases; the patches on the MU
CDs are already incorporated in the HW releases themselves.
The MUs are also available on "SolarisSolve"; to access SolarisSolve,
all you need to do is register with "solregis". This service
is available to all Solaris users.
PatchDiag from Sun helps you keep track of them.
Joe Shamblin's excellent PatchReport allows for easy patch
diagnostics, downloads and installation.
Casper Dik's fastpatch allows for lightning speed patch installation.
3.37) Where do I get patches from?
Sites not sponsored by Sun, accessible for all:
ugle.unit.no:/pub/unix/sun-fixes
ftp.luth.se:/pub/unix/sun/all_patches
SunSites (carry recommended and security patches):
sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/sun-info/sun-patches
sunsite.sut.ac.jp:/pub/sun-info/sun-us/sun-patches
sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk:/sun/sunsite-sun-info/sun-patches
Sunsolve:
sunsolve.sun.com:/pub/patches
http://sunsolve.sun.com/
These are Sun's own sites, they has the recommended patches up for
anonymous ftp, packaged as one huge 2.x_Recommended.tar.Z file
and as individual patches.
Starting with Solaris 7, all patches are delivered .zip files, including
the 7_Recommended.zip file.
Starting with SunSolve CD 2.1.2 ALL Sun patches are shipped
on the SunSolve CD.
Contract customers can get all patches by ftp from Sunsolve
or via e-mail and query one of the online sunsolve-databases
on the Internet.
3.38) Where can I obtain Solaris 2/x86 driver updates?
The Solaris x86 driver updates can be obtained by HTTP from:
http://access1.sun.com/drivers/driverMain.html
http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/sun-info/solaris-x86/sunsoft-drivers
The Solaris x86 driver updates can be obtained by anonymous ftp from:
ftp.uu.net:/vendor/sun/solaris/
sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/sun-info/solaris-x86/sunsoft-drivers
3.39) Why does installing patches take so much space in /var/sadm?
All the files that are replaced by a patch are stored under
/var/sadm/patch//save so the patch can be safely
backed out. Newer patches will save the old files
under /var/sadm/pkg//save//undo.Z, for each package
patches.
You can remove the /save directory provided you also
remove the /.oldfilessaved file. Newer patches will not
install a .oldfilessaved file.
Alternatively, you can install a patch w/o saving the old
files by using the "-d" flag to installpatch.
3.40) Do I need to back out previous versions of a patch?
No, unless otherwise stated in the patch README.
If the previous patch installation saved the old
files, you may want to reclaim that space.
Patches can be backed out with (Solaris 2.6+):
patchrm
or in earlier releases:
/var/sadm/patch//backoutpatch
Backoutpatch can take an awful long time, especially when the
patch contained a lot of files. This is fixed in later versions
of backoutpatch.
3.41) How can I have more than 48 pseudo-ttys?
For Solaris 7 and before, edit /etc/system and add the following line:
* System V pseudo terminals
set pt_cnt =
Halt the system and boot -r.
You can essentially have as many as you like, but you'll probably
run into some other limit somewhere. More than 3000 are supported.
Solaris 2.6 and earlier have telnet/rlogin daemons that do not
support more than 3844 sessions each. That restriction is lifted
in Solaris 7.
Starting with Solaris 8, the number of pseudo terminals grows
dynamically on demand. Setting the "pt_cnt" variable is no longer
needed. The system still imposes internal limit based on available
resources which is, usually, very high. In the rare case when this
limit is still inadequate administrator may set pt_cnt variable to
override it. If pt_cnt is set to anything less than the
system-defined limit, its value is ignored.
If administrators want to explicitly limit the maximum number of
allocated ptys, they should set pt_max_pty variable which specifies
the maximum number of ptys that can be created in the system. The
default value 0 means that the maximum is automatically determined
by the system based on the amount of memory.
There is no need to reboot the system with -r flag after changing
these variables. The changes start working immediately upon being
set, even if they are set on the running system by adb or some
other means.
The pty driver creates entries in the /dev/pts directory as needed
and these entries are never removed automatically, so they do not
indicate the actual amount of ptys allocated by the system.
Some die-hard system administrator myths as well as some Sun
documentation claim that you have to increase "sad_cnt", "sadcnt"
or "nautopush" when adding ptys. There is no truth in this.
In the unlikely event that you run out of BSD-style ptys,
you can increase them as well. The maximum here is currently
176 for pty[p-z][0-9a-f]. This is somewhat less that the BSD
maximum of 256 limited by 8 bit device minor numbers.
BSD ttys are awkward to use and all programs I found support SYSV
ptys without trouble.
* You don't need this. Increasing this value too much usually
* just wastes memory.
* BSD applications never support more than 256 ptys.
* Solaris 2.x supports no more than 176 BSD ptys.
set npty =
But you're not there yet, you also need to edit /etc/iu.ap and
substitute the new value of "npty-1" for the "47" on the following
line, in case you do increase the number of BSD style ptys.
ptsl 0 47 ldterm ttcompat
Halt the system and boot -r.
3.42) How can I have normal users chown their files?
Add the following to /etc/system:
set rstchown = 0
This will defeat the quota system and may compromise the
security of your system.
3.43) How can I get ps to print %MEM and %CPU?
Prior to Solaris 2.4, the OS didn't do the bookkeeping
necessary to obtain these values. In Solaris 2.4 the code
was added to kernel and /usr/ucb/ps can now show these values.
Under Solaris 2.3 and earlier your only recourse is using
the public domain utility top (See 2.3).
3.44) How can I get the DOS and Unix clock to agree on Solaris/x86?
After installation, run the command /usr/sbin/rtc -z $TZ,
where $TZ is your timezone. The default root crontab runs
/usr/sbin/rtc -c once every day.
That way your clock will give the proper time whether you boot
Solaris or DOS/Windows.
3.45) How can I increase the number of file descriptors per process?
In 2.3 in earlier this requires poking the kernel.
In Solaris 2.4+, this can be accomplished by adding the
following lines to /etc/system:
* set hard limit on file descriptors
set rlim_fd_max = 4096
* set soft limit on file descriptors
set rlim_fd_cur = 1024
Raising the soft limit past 256 may confuse certain applications,
especially BCP applications. Raising the limit past 1024 may
confuse applications that use select(). Select() cannot use more
than 1024 file descriptors at this time prior to Solaris 7. In
Solaris 2.6, the RPC code was rewritten to use poll(), which does
work with many more fds than select(). Prior to 2.6, all RPC
servers will likely crash and burn if you increase the fd soft
limit past 1024.
Solaris 7 allows upto 65536 fds passed to select; this is the
default for 64 bit applications but it requires recompiling with a
larger value for FD_SETSIZE for 32 bit apps.
Programs using stdio or even library calls that use stdio may break
when they have more than 256 files open as that is the stdio limit.
Programs using many filedescriptors should try and reserve a number
of low numbered file descriptors for use by stdio.
The stdio limit is removed for 64 bit applications in Solaris 7;
if you really need more than 256 FILE * in and you can't use Solaris 7+
or need to run in 32 bits, you can use SFIO from AT&T.
3.46) Can I install both SunOS and Solaris on the same machine,
and choose between them at boot time?
Yes, that is possible. All partitions other than the system
partitions (typically /, /usr, /var and /opt) can be shared by the
two OSes. All partitions, including the system partitions, can be
mounted and accessed by either OS.
The easiest way to set this up is to do separate suninstalls on two
different disks. Then just choose the appropriate disk at boot
time with the PROM's "boot" command.
Setting up both OSes on one disk is a little harder, but not much.
You need to partition the disk to allow for both OSes. Almost any
partition layout is possible, but one common setup might be:
a: / for Solaris 2
b: swap (shared)
c: The usual (whole disk)
d: / for Solaris 1
e: /usr for Solaris 1
g: /usr for Solaris 2
Again, it's most reliable to use suninstall to do the installations.
If for some reason you choose not to use suninstall, make sure you run
installboot for both bootable partitions.
With this setup, you choose between the two OSes in the PROM's "boot"
command as follows:
To boot Solaris 2: boot
To boot Solaris 1: boot disk:d
NOTE: In boot PROM versions <= 2.5, the "disk:d" syntax is not supported,
and the PROM cannot boot from root partitions that begin or end beyond 1GB.
3.47) How do I disable banner pages under Solaris?
As root, go to directory /etc/lp/interfaces. Edit the file that
corresponds to the printer name. Change the line that reads
'nobanner="no"' to 'nobanner="yes"'.
To effect this change on future printers, edit the scripts in
/usr/lib/lp/model. That directory contains the template scripts
copied over to /etc/lp/interfaces.
3.48) How do I change my hostname?
The supported way to change your hostname is:
# /usr/sbin/sys-unconfig
The system will halt and on subsequent boot will ask for its name
and other networking parameters again.
You may wish to save a copy of /etc/nsswitch.conf beforehand as
that file is overwritten by the configuration process.
Note that sys-unconfig is not supported on diskless or dataless
workstations. On those, you'll need to edit files by hand. See the
sys-unconfig(1M) for a list of the files that need changing.
|3.49) Can I run multiple terminals on the console of Solaris x86
like those supported on Interactive Unix and SCO?
Yes. In Solaris x86 2.1, these worked 'out of the box'.
In Solaris x86 2.4 thru 7, they are no longer configured during the
installation, but they still work if configured afterwards by hand.
Sun apparently disabled them in this way because they are no longer
officially supported, but fortunately, they did not actually remove
them from the kernel, so you can configure them back in yourself as
follows. In Solaris 8 they're gone.
First verify the device's major number with grep:
# grep -i chanmux /etc/name_to_major
chanmux
Add the /dev entries, substituting whatever you found with grep
for :
mknod /dev/vt01 c 1
mknod /dev/vt02 c 2
etc...
add the following to /etc/inittab (after the co entry):
v1:234:respawn:/usr/lib/saf/ttymon -g -h -p "VT1 Login: " -T AT386 -d /dev/vt01 -l console
v2:234:respawn:/usr/lib/saf/ttymon -g -h -p "VT2 Login: " -T AT386 -d /dev/vt02 -l console
etc...
To get init to reread inittab, either reboot, or issue the command:
/usr/sbin/init q
Now,
Alt-PrintScreen F1 switches to VT1,
Alt-PrintScreen F2 switches to VT2,
etc,
Alt-PrintScreen P switches to previous screen in cyclic sequence,
Alt-PrintScreen N switches to next screen in cyclic sequence.
Alt-PrintScreen H switches to console screen (and not
Alt-PrintScreen F8 as on Interactive Unix)
3.50) How can I prevent daemons from creating mode 666 files?
Prior to Solaris 8, all daemons inherited the umask 0 from init.
In Solaris 8, the default was changed from 0 to 022, a saner
value. It is now settable in /etc/default/init (CMASK=value).
The old behaviour is most problematic for a service like ftp, which
in a standard configuration leaves all uploaded files with mode 666.
To get daemons to use another umask execute the following
commands in /bin/sh and reboot:
umask 022 # make sure umask.sh gets created with the proper mode
echo "umask 022" > /etc/init.d/umask.sh
for d in /etc/rc?.d
do
ln /etc/init.d/umask.sh $d/S00umask.sh
done
Note: the trailing ".sh" of the scriptname is important, if
you don't specify it, the script will will be executed in a
sub-shell, not in the main shell that executes all other scripts.
In Solaris 2.6 and later, in.ftpd(1M) allows setting its umask
in /etc/default/ftpd.
3.51) How do I change the terminal type for /dev/console?
Change the "-T sun" in the following line in /etc/inittab to
"-T ":
co:234:respawn:/usr/lib/saf/ttymon -g -h \
-p "`uname -n` console login: " -T sun \
-d /dev/console -l console -m ldterm,ttcompat
(Line broken for readability)
3.52) If I login over the network, my terminal type is set to "sun"/"AT386"
How can I change that? In SunOS 4.x the type would have been "network"
If no terminal type is specified in the network (telnet/rlogin)
protocol, the standard startup scripts (/etc/profile, /etc/.login)
will set the terminal type to the default console type (sun for
SPARCs, AT386 for x86).
To get the SunOS 4.x. behaviour back, all you need to do is set the
type to "network", if not previously set.
3.53) How can I change the SYSV IPC parameters?
The following parameters can be used to change the number of
semaphores, the amount of shared memory and the number of IPC
messages. They're set in /etc/system, as usual.
set semsys:seminfo_semusz =
set semsys:seminfo_semopm =
set semsys:seminfo_semume =
set semsys:seminfo_semaem =
set semsys:seminfo_semmap =
set semsys:seminfo_semvmx =
set semsys:seminfo_semmsl =
set semsys:seminfo_semmni =
set semsys:seminfo_semmns =
set semsys:seminfo_semmnu =
set shmsys:shminfo_shmmin =
set shmsys:shminfo_shmseg =
set shmsys:shminfo_shmmax =
set shmsys:shminfo_shmmni =
set msgsys:msginfo_msgseg =
set msgsys:msginfo_msgssz =
set msgsys:msginfo_msgtql =
set msgsys:msginfo_msgmap =
set msgsys:msginfo_msgmax =
set msgsys:msginfo_msgmnb =
set msgsys:msginfo_msgmni =
3.54) How do I enable/disable dtlogin?
Whether dtlogin is started or not is settable with /usr/dt/bin/dtconfig
As dtlogin itself explain when invoked without arguments:
/usr/dt/bin/dtconfig -d (disable auto-start)
/usr/dt/bin/dtconfig -e (enable auto-start)
/usr/dt/bin/dtconfig -kill (kill dtlogin)
/usr/dt/bin/dtconfig -reset (reset dtlogin)
/usr/dt/bin/dtconfig -p (printer action update)
/usr/dt/bin/dtconfig -inetd (inetd.conf /usr/dt daemons)
/usr/dt/bin/dtconfig -inetd.ow (inetd.conf /usr/openwin daemons)
3.55) How do I configure dtlogin?
The standard CDE configuration files live in /usr/dt/config.
You're not supposed to edit them there, but copy the files
you want to modify to /etc/dt/config and edit them there.
The /etc/dt directory does not exist, you must create it.
Customizing dtgreet, the login widget, is done through
/etc/dt/config/C/Xresources; near the end you'll find the following:
!! To disable options in dtgreet window, uncomment the appropriate
!! line below.
!Dtlogin*options_noWindows*sensitive: False
!Dtlogin*remote_host_menu*sensitive: False
!Dtlogin*options_languages*sensitive: False
!Dtlogin*session_menus*sensitive: False
!Dtlogin*options_restartServer*sensitive: False
!! To disable options under remote login option menu, uncomment the
!! appropriate line below.
!Dtlogin*remote_login_host*sensitive: False
!Dtlogin*choose_login_host*sensitive: False
By removing the ! in front of the !Dtlogin you can disable the following
menu items, respectively:
1) Command Line Login
2) Remote Login
3) Language choice
4) Session choice
5) Reset Login Screen
6) Under the "Remote Login" menu, "Enter Hostname ..."
7) Under the "Remote Login" menu, "Choose Host From List ..."
Two undocumented options, "options_failsafe" and "options_last_dt",
can be used to disable the Failsafe and Last Session choices, though
the default will continue to be "Last Session".
By commenting out the following lines by prepending them with a
exclamation mark (!), you can disable the CDE environment login
(and force users to use the other choices)
Dtlogin*altDts: 1
Dtlogin*altDtName1: Common Desktop Environment (CDE)
Dtlogin*altDtKey1: /usr/dt/bin/dtwm
Dtlogin*altDtStart1: /usr/dt/bin/Xsession
Dtlogin*altDtLogo1: Dtlogo
The OpenWindows Desktop can be disable by creating an empty
"/etc/dt/config/C/Xresources.d/Xresources.ow" file. Other desktops
can be added by creating files like Xresources.ow in the
Xresources.d directory.
3.56) How can I configure a second monitor or change X server options?
First, you simply plug in the second framebuffer; plug in the monitor,
make sure you have the correct device drivers installed and
do a reconfiguration boot.
The X server is started through the dt/config Xservers file; you'll
need to modify it when you change your X server configuration:
# Never edit the /usr/dt/config files in place
mkdir -m 755 -p /etc/dt/config
cp /usr/dt/config/Xservers /etc/dt/config
Edit the Xservers file and change the line with "local_uid@console"
to suit your needs; the Xsun(1) describes what arguments to pass.
Here are some examples (lines split for clarity):
# FFB as left monitor, PGX (m64) to the right (two ways)
:0 Local local_uid@console root /usr/openwin/bin/Xsun :0 -nobanner \
-dev /dev/fbs/ffb0 -dev /dev/fbs/m640
:0 Local local_uid@console root /usr/openwin/bin/Xsun :0 -nobanner \
-dev /dev/fbs/m640 -dev /dev/fbs/ffb0 left
# FFB, PGX (m64) underneath
:0 Local local_uid@console root /usr/openwin/bin/Xsun :0 -nobanner \
-dev /dev/fbs/m640 -dev /dev/fbs/ffb0 top
# 2x FFB, using a default 24 bit visual instead of the standard 8
:0 Local local_uid@console root /usr/openwin/bin/Xsun :0 -nobanner \
-dev /dev/fbs/ffb0 defdepth 24 -dev /dev/fbs/ffb1 defdepth 24
|3.57) How can I have more than 128 X windows clients?
When you get the following errors, you've run out of X sockets.
Xlib: connection to :0.0 refused by server
Xlib: maximum number of clients reached
By default, the X server has a limit of just 128. In order to
increase this limit, you need to run at least Solaris 8 or an
earlier release with the Xserver patch applies that fixes bug:
4185418 the X server should support more connections
Then change the Xservers configuration file and add the "-clients 1024"
option to the X commandline.
|3.58) Xvnc/Xnest/Xvfb can't create a socket in /tmp/.X11-unix.
The permissions to the /tmp/.X11-* directories have been restricted
for security reasons.
In order to still run unprivileged programs such as Xvnc/Xnest/Xvfb,
you need to start those programs with the "-pn" option.
You can no longer use displays of the form ":"; only
displays with the full hostname will still work: ":".
3.59) How can I restrict remote access through dtlogin?
Copy to /usr/dt/config/Xaccess file to /etc/dt/config.
Comment out the following lines if you want to fully restrict access:
* # grant service to all remote displays
* CHOOSER BROADCAST #any indirect host can get a chooser
The dtlogin(1x) manual page explains how to have more fine grained
control.
3.60) How do I disable the 2.6+ configuration assistant?
In the file /platform/i86pc/boot/solaris/bootenv.rc, set the
property "auto-boot-timeout" to -1 and the configuration
assistant will be disabled.
If you need to change your hardware, you need to undo that
change before installing the hardware and rebooting.
3.61) How do I convert SunOS 4.x style /etc/passwd to Solaris passwd & shadow.
Add the entries you want to copy to the Solaris /etc/passwd file.
Then run "pwconv" which will split out the /etc/shadow fields.
3.62) How can I obtain the PROM level without halting my SPARC?
prtconf -V
3.63) How can I use Solaris 2.6+ formatted disks on SunOS 4.x?
Solaris 2.6 increased the default maxcontig parameter, so mounting
2.6 disks on 4.1.x no longer works. You can change this with
tunefs, without rerunning newfs:
tunefs -a 7
3.64) Can I use soft mounts with NFS?
Technically, you can, but it's like saying: "please set fire to my
server and take the backups with you too; I don't care about my data
at all."
So, DON'T.
|*3.65) How can I boot a 32 bit kernel when a 64 bit kernel is installed?
| Sun hardware released after Solaris 8 no longer supports 32 bit booting;
| you can only run 64 bit kernels on those. This applies to all Ultra-III
| systems as well as the Sun Blade 100 and other UltraSPARC-IIe systems.
| In order to boot a 32 bit kernel on other 64-bit capable systems,
| type "boot kernel/unix" at the "ok" prompt.
Setting the "boot-file" in the EEPROM to "kernel/unix" makes it
the default kernel. Alternatively, you can move away the sparcv9/unix
file in which case the boot loader will fall back to the 32 bit kernel.
Patch installation may restore that file, though.
Beware: when specifying "boot -s", or any boot command with flag
arguments, the standard default kernel/sparcv9/unix kernel will be
booted; you need to specify "boot kernel/unix -s".
|3.66) How can I tell whether I'm running a 32 or 64 bit kernel?
The command "isainfo" was provided for precisely that reason;
64% isainfo -kv
64-bit sparcv9 kernel modules
32% isainfo -kv
32-bit sparc kernel modules
Solaris 2.6 and earlier releases are always 32 bit and lack the
"isainfo" command.
3.67) How do I get rid of the Solregis pop-up?
Some people are annoyed by the Solregis pop-up, especially if you
do not want all users to register.
Create /etc/default/solregis and put the following in it:
DISABLE=1
This prevents the solregis program from starting.
The manual lists a method to disable it on a per-user basis.
Registering with solregis gives access to SolarisSolve; this
enables you to fetch the Maintenance Updates.
You can also remove the SUNWsregu package or don't install it
in the first place.
3.68) Where do I get Disksuite for Solaris 8
You already have it. It's on the Solaris2of2 CD in the
Solaris_8/EA directory.
3.69) How do perform an old-fashioned interactive install in Solaris 8?
Boot from the Solaris1of2 CD and not from the webstart CD.
3.70) Now that Solaris install from several CDs, how can I jumpstart?
In order to create a jumpstart image containing all the
Solaris software, you first create an image like before from
the Solaris 1of2 CD.
Then you mount the Solaris2of2 CD and run
Solaris_*/Tools/add_to_install_server /path/to/image/directory
If you want, you can also add the langcd to the install image.
3.71) How can I grow a UFS filesystem?
You can grow but not shrink a UFS filesystem if you manage to
increase the size of the partition it lives in, with the
following command:
/usr/lib/fs/ufs/mkfs -G -M /current/mount /dev/rdsk/cXtYdZsA newsize
Specifying the current mount point and raw device as well as the new
size in 512 byte blocks.
You can do this even when the filesystem is mounted and in use.
3.72) How do I install without starting OpenWindows?
boot {net|cdrom} - install w
3.73) How do I set up Solaris for my time zone and daylight saving rules?
You don't need to adjust your clock. Internally, Solaris uses
Universal Time and is unaffected by time zone and daylight saving.
However, you may need to adjust the TZ line in /etc/default/init to
match your location, so that programs can read and display time stamps
appropriately for your location. For example, you should use the line:
TZ=Australia/Broken_Hill
if you are in Broken Hill, Australia. After you change the TZ line in
/etc/default/init, reboot to propagate the change to all processes.
A TZ setting like Australia/Broken_Hill operates by referring to a
file /usr/share/lib/zoneinfo/Australia/Broken_Hill that contains
compiled data about the history of time zone and daylight saving
changes at that location. You can run the time zone compiler
yourself with a command like the following:
# In Solaris 8 and later: cd /usr/share/lib/zoneinfo/src
cd /usr/share/lib/zoneinfo
/usr/sbin/zic africa asia australasia europe northamerica southamerica
This command generates compiled time zone files for all the locations
mentioned in the text files 'africa', 'asia', etc. This is a much
larger set than the set of compiled time zone files shipped by default
in Solaris. If you're in an unusual location, you'll need to run zic
to get the proper time zone file; e.g. you must run zic to get
TZ=Antarctica/South_Pole to work.
Time zones and daylight saving rules change every now and then, so the
files in /usr/share/lib/zoneinfo are periodically updated by Sun, and
you may need to install a time zone patch (e.g. patch 103834 for
Solaris 2.5.1) to bring things up to date for your location. Or you
can install the most recent version of the time zone text files from
the public domain time zone database ,
and compile the files yourself with zic.
You can also use a POSIX TZ setting like
TZ=CET-1CEST,M3.5.0/2,M10.5.0/3 as described in the environ(5) man
page, but this is more confusing and is easy to get wrong, and it
mishandles time stamps preceding the most recent time zone or
daylight saving rule change.
3.74) I always install my own perl, can I remove the Sun installed one?
Sun is planning to build software that is tested against the
version of perl supplied with the OS.
The answer is NO, you cannot remove perl.
You can remove the /usr/bin/perl link, as Sun supplied software
will only depend on /usr/perl5/bin/perl being present.
|+3.75) Where did kgmon go?
| The kgmon has been obsolete by lockstat. Lockstat has similar
| functionality:
| lockstat -kgIW sleep 5
4. NETWORKING
4.1) How do I use DNS w/o using NIS or NIS+?
Under SunOS 4.1 it was next to impossible to run DNS name resolution
without either a kludge fix or the NIS (V2 I guess). Under Solaris
2.1 it is incredibly simple, but you must ignore what the manual
(SunOS 5.1 Administering NIS+ and DNS) says (the manual is fixed
in Solaris 2.2). All that is required to make a non-NIS host
use the DNS for name resolution is to change the host: line in
the /etc/nsswitch.conf file to the following:
hosts: files dns
(i.e., when looking for hosts, look in /etc/hosts first, if not
found there, try DNS, if still not found then give up) and set
up a correct version of /etc/resolv.conf to tell the resolver
routines (like gethostbyname) how to contact the DNS
nameserver. You must have the names of machines which are
somehow contacted during boot in the files in /etc and files
must appear first in the hosts: line, otherwise the machine
will hang during boot (at least ours did). Make sure that
/etc/netconfig is as it was shipped. (In Solaris 2.3 and earlier,
it will use "switch.so,tcpip.so" for ip, in Solaris 2.4 it
just uses "-")
4.2) What is /etc/nsswitch.conf?
An idea whose time has come (it came to Ultrix a few years
ago). You can control which of the "resolver" services are
read from NIS (formerly YP), which from NIS+, which from the
files in /etc, and which are from DNS (but only "hosts" can
come from DNS).
A common example would be:
hosts: nis files
which means ask NIS for host info and, if it's not found, try
the local machine's host table as a fallback.
Advice: if you're not using NIS or DNS, SunInstall probably put
the right version in. If you are, ensure that hosts and passwd
come from the network. However, many of the other services
seldom if ever change. When was that last time *you*
added a line in /etc/protocols? If your workstation has a local
disk, it may be better to have programs on your machine look up
these services locally, so use "files".
Terminology: Sun worried over the term "resolver", which
technically means any "get info" routine (getpwent(3),
gethostbyname(3), etc), but is also specifically attached to
the DNS resolver. Therefore they used the term "source" to
mean the things after the colon (files/DNS/NIS/NIS+) and
"database" to mean the thing before the colon
(passwd/group/hosts/services/netgroup etc).
A complete discussion can be found in nsswitch.conf(4).
4.3) What does [NOTFOUND=return] in nsswitch.conf mean?
Type "man nsswitch.conf" for more info. There is too much
detail to summarize here. Briefly, [NOTFOUND=return] means
that the name service whose entry it *follows* should be
considered authoritative (so that if it's up and it says such a
name doesn't exist, believe it and return instead of continuing
to hunt for an answer).
4.4) Can I run a nis/yp server under Solaris 2.x?
A number of options have been made available over time for
running ypserv on Solaris:
1) NSkit 1.0. A version of SunOS 4.x NIS executables made to
work on Solaris 2.x. Fully included in patch 101363-08.
2) NSkit 1.1. Native, available from OPcom, but never left beta
stage. Didn't do DNS lookups well (the entire server hangs until
a DNS request is answered).
3) NSkit 1.2. Native. Freely available from the Solaris 2.x
migration initiative home page. Supports multi-homed hosts,
async DNS lookups and shadow password maps. Also shipped with
the 2.5 server kit.
4) SUNWypr/SUNWypu native Solaris packages. Shipped with
Solaris 2.6 and later as part of the base OS CD.
NSkit 1.2 is available for SPARC and x86.
4.5) Can I run NIS+ under Solaris 1 (SunOS 4.1.x)
Sort of, with the NIS+ server implementation for Solaris 1.x that
used to come on the Solaris 2.x CD, upto Solaris 2.3. This is a
server side only implementation and requires NIS+ to run in YP
compatibility mode.
This server doesn't seem to be supported anymore.
4.6) With NIS+ how do I find out which machine a client is bound to?
NIS+ clients do not hard bind to nis+ servers in the same
way that NIS clients bind to NIS servers. The clients have a
list of NIS+ servers within the cold-start file. When they need
to do a lookup they do a type of broadcast called a "manycast"
and talk to the first server that responds. This way they can
be sure to use the lightest loaded server for the request.
4.7) Ypcat doesn't work on the netgroup table on a NIS+ server, why?
Yes, that is a known problem. The only operations allowed from
a NIS client side on the netgroup table are the ypmatches, but
not ypcat (i.e. no support for yp_first(), yp_next() or
yp_all() calls). The netgroup table is kind of unique in
this. The reason for this is that the netgroup table format
changed quite significantly in NIS+ and the NIS+ server would
take a big performance hit in converting the netgroups table to
YP (key-value) format.
4.8) Why is rpc.nisd such a memory pig according to ps?
The good news is that it's not memory OR swap space you're
being shown by 'ps'. Instead it's showing you the process
ADDRESS space which includes 256 MB of address space reserved
for the NIS+ transaction log. Given the cost of moving things
around in memory and the fact that we have 4 GB of address
space to play with it, this is a good idea. You've just got to
stop thinking small. THINK BIG. It's only 1/16th of the total
process address space being used. And if you ever exceed the
256 MB size of the transaction log you're doing something VERY
wrong.
4.9) How do I tell my NIS+ server to service DNS requests from
4.x clients?
Start rpc.nisd with the -B switch. This can be done editing
the server's /etc/init.d/rpc file and change 'EMULYP="-Y"' to
EMULYP="-Y -B"
4.10) How can I have multiple addresses per interface?
Solaris 2.x provides a feature in ifconfig that allows having more
than one IP address per interfaces. Undocumented but existing
prior to 2.5, documented in 2.5 and later.
Syntax:
# This command is only required in later releases
ifconfig IF:N plumb
ifconfig IF:N ip-address up
where "IF" is an interface (e.g., le0) and N is a number between 1 and
. Removing the pseudo interface and associated address is done
with
ifconfig IF:N 0.0.0.0 down
# In newer release you must use the following command, but
# beware that this unplumbs your real interface on older
# releases, so try the above command first.
ifconfig IF:N unplumb
As with physical interfaces, all you need to do is make the
appropriate /etc/hostname.IF:X file.
The maximum number of virtual interfaces, above, is 255 in
Solaris releases prior to 2.6. Solaris 2.6 and Solaris 2.5.1 with
the Solaris Internet Server Supplement (SISS) allow you to set
this value with ndd, upto a hard maximum of 8192.
/usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/ip ip_addrs_per_if 4000
There's no limit inspired by the code; so if you bring out adb you
can increase the maximum even further.
4.11) Solaris 2.x supports filesystem sizes up to 1TB. Will this
give interoperability problems with NFS?
No, you can share those filesystems with SunOS 4.x and other machines
just fine. The NFS protocol rarely transmits the size of the
underlying filesystems. The only programs on SunOS 4 clients that
may give trouble are du and df, but normal filesystem use is just
fine.
4.12) Where can I get an SNMP agent for Solaris?
There are several agents available, including one from Sun.
ftp.ece.ucdavis.edu:/pub/snmp
Solstice Enterprise Agents, hit the "software download" icon
Sun SNMP agents
Solaris 2.6 ships with an SNMP agent.
|*4.13) How can I use full-duplex ethernet?
Sun's hme fast ethernet adaptors support full-duplex ethernet; it isn't
enabled by default because when first shipped the full-duplex standard
hadn't materialized yet.
There are several ways of changing the default settings and force
full-duplex mode; you may need to alter your switch settings as well.
Setting through /etc/system
set hme:hme_adv_autoneg_cap=0
set hme:hme_adv_100hdx_cap=0
set hme:hme_adv_100fdx_cap=1
Setting with ndd
ndd -set /dev/hme adv_100hdx_cap 0
ndd -set /dev/hme adv_100fdx_cap 1
ndd -set /dev/hme adv_autoneg_cap 0
In case you have multiple instances, you need to select the specific
hme instance first, e.g., use the following to select hme1:
ndd -set /dev/hme instance 1
If you need to query the device, you can interrogate various variables
such as ``link_status'', ``link_speed'', etc.
Setting "adv_autoneg_cap", not necessarily changing it, will cause
re-negotiating of link speed/duplex settings.
| The dfme device cannot configured using /etc/system but are configured
| either with ndd (but on per-device nodes /dev/dfme0, dev/dfme1) or
| by editing dfme.conf.
4.14) Where can I get BOOTP/DHCP for Solaris?
Solaris 2.6 ships with BOOTP/DHCP support.
For older releases, you have to look into public domain servers,
such as those from the Internet Consortium.
4.15) What kind of multicast support does Solaris have?
All versions of Solaris have IGMPv1 support, which is sufficient
for multicast client support. Various unsupported patches for IGMPv2
support have been made available over the years; that support is
integrated in Solaris 2.6.
You will need to get and install mrouted yourself.
4.16) How can I have NAT or a firewall on Solaris?
There are several NAT and firewall solutions.
Sun has recently made SunScreen lite available for free from
Sun's home page.
Alternatively, there's Darren Reed's ipfilter package.
|*4.17) Where can I get an IPv6 capable version of tcp wrapper?
The IPv6 capable version of tcp wrapper is available at Wietse's
site in the /pub/ipv6 directory.
| Make sure you configure it with -DHAVE_IPV6.
5. TROUBLE SHOOTING
5.1) The Solaris 2.x application XX fails with a mysterious error condition.
Try truss(1). truss -f -o file cmd args ...
will put a trace of all system calls in "file".
This often helps as a first step in diagnosing many failure modes,
such as insufficient permissions on certain files etc..
5.2) In Solaris 2.5 nm is slow or dumps core.
A bug introduced in the 2.5 locale libraries make strcoll()
return bogus values when confronted with empty strings.
This bogus empty string comparison makes that strcoll no longer
defines a strict order on strings, that confuses the hell out
of qsort which promptly crashes.
Workaround: set LC_COLLATE to "C"
(Note that xview applications will usually reset LC_COLLATE to
LC_ALL, so in cmdtool/shelltool windows, LC_COLLATE needs to be set
again.)
5.3) Why can't I run Answerbook on a standalone machine?
This is a bug in OpenWindows. Using xhost + or starting
"openwin -noauth" works around this problem. This is
only recommended for stand-alone machines with no dial-in
users. [ S 2.3 ]
5.4) Why can't I display Answerbook remotely?
Displaying answerbook requires support for the DPS extension in the
X server. The DPS extension is supported by most common Unix
workstations, but not by most PC/X offerings and is often an extra
cost item for X terminals.
A number of people have reported success using ghostview as a
replacement for the answerbook viewer, but this has the unfortunate
side effect of not supporting the hypertext links in the documents.
A better solution is to install a client side Display PostScript
extension.
Adobe has defined such a client side extension and call it
DPS-NX. Bluestone sells a version.
Solaris 2.6 and later come with an answerbook HTTP server which
can be used with any web browser.
5.5) Why can't I run filemgr, I get ``mknod: permission denied''?
This is a symptom of a bug in filemgr in Solaris 2.3.
Either apply patch #101514 or run the following commands
at system start-up:
mkdir /tmp/.removable
chmod a+rwxt /tmp/.removable
5.6) Why do I get isinf undefined when linking with libdps on Solaris 2.3?
That's a bug in libdps (fixed in 2.4). Sun compiles and links its
software with its own compilers. The isinf() function is shipped
with the SunPRO compilers, but not defined in any Solaris 2.3
library.
A workaround exists, and consists of adding the following to
your program:
#include
int isinf(double x) { return !finite(x) && x==x; }
5.7) I can't get PPP to work between Solaris 2.3 and other platforms.
The PPP shipped with Solaris 2.3 doesn't interoperate with
other PPP implementations. Patch #101425 fixes this.
5.8) Using compat mode for passwd doesn't work in 2.3?
You need patch #101448.
5.9) Why do I get __builtin_va_alist or __builtin_va_arg_incr undefined?
You're using gcc without properly installing the gcc fixed
include files. Or you ran fixincludes after installing gcc
w/o moving the gcc supplied varargs.h and stdarg.h files
out of the way and moving them back again later. This often
happens when people install gcc from a binary distribution.
If there's a tmp directory in gcc's include directory, fixincludes
didn't complete. You should have run "just-fixinc" instead.
Another possible cause is that you're using ``gcc -I/usr/include.''
Reinstall gcc or upgrade to gcc 2.8.0 or later, which doesn't
require a reinstallation after every OS upgrade, if you
run Solaris 2.5 or later.
5.10) When compiling, I get "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"?
There are two typical causes for this; one is compiling with
a bad install of gcc (See 5.9). The other possible cause
is installing BIND 4.x or 8.x header files, e.g., by running
"make install". You can check this with "pkgchk SUNWhea"; if
this returns any errors, you need to recover the damaged include
file from the original installation media.
5.11) My machine hangs during the boot process. It seems related to ps.
When the system boots, the first invocation of ps will try to
recreate /tmp/ps_data. To this end ps scans the /dev tree.
Under some circumstances, a loop exists in /dev and ps will
run forever. Most of the time this loop is caused by the symbolic
link /dev/bd.off. While this link usually points to /dev/term/b,
it sometimes get truncated and points to /dev instead.
Fix: rm -f /dev/bd.off; ln -s /dev/term/b /dev/bd.off
| Use truss(1) to determine whether this is really the cause of your
problem.
5.12) Syslogd doesn't seem to log anything.
Make sure you have /usr/ccs/bin/m4 installed. It's in
package SUNWbtool (m4 is included in SUNWcsu in 2.4 and later).
Other causes are bugs in Solaris 2.3 and various revisions of
patches. E.g., syslogd is broken in all 101318 patches
between level -42 and -50. It works again in 101318-54.
For 2.4, you may need patch 102534-xx and/or 102697-xx.
In Solaris 2.6, syslogd again seems to be crash prone.
You need 106439 (sparc) or 106440 (x86), rev -02 or later.
5.13) Syslogd in 2.6 runs with -z -n, what's up?
In some cases, syslogd as a multi-threaded applications needs
to do a restart using exec. It uses two internal options to
pass on some state information.
5.14) I get ``Invalid client credential'' when mounting filesystem on
Solaris client from non-Sun fileserver.
Some vendors still ship a version of RPC/NFS that allows at
most 8 groups in the client credentials. Root on Solaris is by
default in 10 groups. As a result, the Solaris 2.x mount
command will send AUTH_UNIX credentials that are too big to
cope with for the remote mount daemon resulting in the ``Invalid
client credential'' error.
Workaround: put root and all your users in 8 or less groups.
NOTE: You must logout and login again for changes in the number
of groups to take effect. (or exit root's shell and re-su)
5.15) After upgrade to 2.4, ls on NFS mounted directories hangs.
Starting with Solaris 2.4, a kernel workaround to limit
NFS readdir requests to 1024 bytes was disabled by default.
This breaks interoperability with buggy old NFS implementations
(such as SunOS 3.2, Ultrix and NeXT)
There are two workarounds. The first one works and is:
mount all filesystems from such servers with rsize=1024.
The second one, which requires a patch for bugid #1193696
(101945-29 or later for SPARC, 101946-24 or later for x86)
Edit /etc/system and add:
set nfs:nfs_shrinkreaddir = 1
and reboot.
5.16) After installing patch 101945-xx, I have NFS problems (ksh looping).
Patch 101945-17 introduced an bug in the NFS client code that makes
that programs using NFS locking will sometimes go in an
interruptible read. (I.e., you can kill the program that hangs)
Truss will show the program sleeping in read(2) while top
will show it eating CPU. The ksh seems to have this quite
a lot. There's also a lot of network traffic.
Fix: install a patch for bug-id #1198278 on your NFS clients.
(101945-29 or later for SPARC, 101946-24 or later for x86)
Workaround: mount NFS filesystems with "noac", but this costs
performance.
5.17) I messed up /etc/system, now I can't boot.
Boot with -as. The kernel will ask you all sorts of questions,
including the name of the system file. Use the previous
/etc/system file or specify /dev/null.
5.18) The /etc/path_to_inst file is corrupted, I can't boot.
You will need to remove the file and then boot with -a and it will
ask you to rebuild the path_to_inst file. It is possible that you
still can't boot after that: if you've added/removed
controllers/disks, the numbering of the controllers may have
changed. You may need to find the new name of /usr and then edit
/etc/vfstab to change all the disk names.
5.19) TCP/IP connections time out too soon, especially on slow links.
The tcp/ip abort interval in Solaris 2.x is too short,
the default value is 2 minutes. The result is that when an
ACK isn't received in *2* minutes, the connection is closed.
This is most often seen by sendmail, which will log
sendmail: SYSERR: collect: read timeout on connection from ...
You can fix this by running following command which increases
the timeout to 8 minutes (unit is millisec), which is the
Solaris 2.4+ (and patched 2.3) default.
/usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/tcp tcp_ip_abort_interval 480000
This command should be placed in a script rc2.d script. (See 3.18)
(See 5.21 for another possible cause)
5.20) Sendmail connection to non-Unix hosts don't work.
With the introduction of sendmail V8 for Solaris 2.x in patch form
and in Solaris 2.5, a bug in sendmail.cf has suddenly started to
play up. The end-of-line character is not defined for the ethernet
mailer, causing sendmail to send bare newlines in violation of the
SMTP protocol which requires CR-NL.To fix, find the following line
in sendmail.cf:
Mether, P=[TCP], F=msDFMuCX, S=11, R=21, A=TCP $h
and change it to:
Mether, P=[TCP], F=msDFMuCX, S=11, R=21, A=TCP $h, E=\r\n
To be on the safe side, check all lines starting with "M" that contain
P=[TCP] or P=[IPC]. They all should use "E=\r\n".
This bug is also fixed in the latest Solaris 2.x sendmail patches.
5.21) Solaris 2.x can't set up any TCP/IP connections to certain hosts.
Solaris 2.x sets the don't fragment bit on all packets it send
as part of MTU path discovery. The Solaris 2.x implementation
is RFC compliant, but the MTU path discovery protocol will
fail when there are broken routers in the path.
Typical symptom is not being able to connect from a
Solaris 2.x hosts but having no trouble from other hosts or
being able to start a TCP/IP connection but not move any
significant amount of data.
/usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/ip ip_path_mtu_discovery 0
(See also 5.19)
5.22) I read 5.21, but I still have connectivity problems.
Solaris 2.x will still send large packets over such links but
without the don't fragment bit set. On a number of occasions, I've
come across links that don't properly handle such packets.
They're not fragmented, they're silently dropped instead.
So if the fix in 5.21 doesn't work you can resort to the
following drastic measure which negatively impacts network
performance:
/usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/tcp tcp_mss_max 536
536 is the standard packet size that is guaranteed to work by virtue
of the fact that most system will communicate outside the local
net with packets that big. If the connection then starts to work,
it's time to find the largest value that works.
It's also worth mentioning that the "ip_path_mtu_discovery" needs
to be applied at both sides of a connection to fully work, applied
at one side it will only affect outgoing large packets. (I.e.,
downloads from the site will succeed but uploads from a other
Solaris 2.x machine w/o the workaround applied may still fail). The
"tcp_mss_max" workaround need only be applied at one side.
If you need the "tcp_mss_max" workaround for some sites, there is a
problem on the link between you and those sites. Get it fixed.
Traceroute will tell you where the problem lies. Try traceroute
host size, for varying sizes. If traceroute without a size
parameter works, but traceroute with a size parameter of 1460 fails
at some hop, the connection between that hop and the next is
broken.
5.23) When reading mail on non-Solaris clients of a Solaris mail
server, or with non-Solaris mail readers, some messages get split
into multiple messages.
Solaris 2.x uses the "Content-Length:" header to tell the MUAs
where messages should be split. Unfortunately, no-one else
understands this convention. Instead, the old convention, ``split
on "From " lines'' is used most of the time. Those mail readers
expect extra lines with "From" to be escaped with ">".
Workaround: add "E" to the mailerflags of the local mailer.
Edit /etc/mail/sendmail.cf on your Solaris machines, add E to
F= on the line that reads:
Mlocal, P=/bin/mail, F=flsSDFMmnP, S=10, R=20, A=mail -d $u
so that it becomes:
Mlocal, P=/bin/mail, F=EflsSDFMmnP, S=10, R=20, A=mail -d $u
5.24) Mail/mailx often send reply to wrong user or show wrong sender.
Mail/mailx use UUCP from line to determine sender, it should use
the From: header only. To achieve this you can use the undocumented
"from" mail variable in your .mailrc: "set from".
To make this the default behavior, add "set from" to
/etc/mail/mailx.rc.
5.25) One of my users can't login (one some machines).
In the shadow table/file/map there is a field that indicates how
long an account may be inactive before it is expired. On login,
the entry in /var/adm/lastlog, the inactive expire time and the
current date are compared. If the system determines that the user
is expired, he will get "Login incorrect", indiscernible from a
normal incorrect login. The fix is to change the user's shadow
entry.
5.26) My clients with remote /var (/var/adm) partitions won't boot.
Remote, but unshared filesystems, such as /, /var, /var/adm, etc.
should be mounted with the llock option. Solaris 2.x does this
automatically for remote /, but not for remote /var or /var/adm.
If you don't specify llock, the system will hang when it tries
to do stuff to the *[wu]tmp files, early in the boot process.
And lpsched may fail if it can't lock /var/spool/lp/SCHEDLOCK.
Workaround: Add the (undocumented) llock option to the mount
options for /var and/or /var/adm. (It should be fixed in
/etc/rcS.d/S70buildmnttab.sh)
5.27) Vacation doesn't work reliably in a mixed Solaris/SunOS environment.
Vacation was moved from /usr/ucb (in SunOS 4.x) to /usr/bin.
Unfortunately, the full pathname must be specified in your .forward.
Workaround: add a link to /usr/ucb/vacation in /usr/bin on SunOS 4
machines, and add a link to /usr/bin/vacation in /usr/ucb on SunOS 5
machines.
5.28) I have a lot of processes. How do I get rid of them?
In general, defunct processes are caused by a parent process not
reaping its children. Find out which process is the parent
process of all those zombies (ps -e). It's that process that
has a bug.
In Solaris 2.3 (and presumably earlier) there is a bug in the
pseudo tty modules that makes them hang in close. This causes
processes to hang forever while exiting.
Fix: Apply patch 101415-02 (for 2.3).
In all Solaris 2 releases prior to 2.5 (also fixed in the latest
2.4 kernel jumbo patch), init (process 1) calls sync() every five
minutes which can hang init for some considerable time. This can
cause a lot of zombies accumulating with process 1 as parent, but
occurs only in rare circumstances.
5.29) I get /dev/ptmx: No such device when attempting to telnet/rlogin in.
You need to increase the number of pseudo ttys (See 3.41).
5.30) ld bails out with msync errors.
You probably use a Cray as fileserver. It doesn't support all
NFS operations ld wants to perform. Install the following patch:
101409-04: SunOS 5.3: Jumbo linker patch
[ Solaris 2.3 ]
5.31) su responds with "Sorry" and doesn't prompt for a password.
Su won't run under a shell compiled under SunOS 4.1.x.
Recompile your shell (tcsh/bash) under Solaris 2.x.
5.32) Why can't I install 2.4 from a non-Sun CD while I could do so with 2.3?
Several changes were made to the "sd" driver between 2.3 and 2.4.
In particular, the code that resets the drive to the 512 block size
is no longer called in the case of a data overrun. Accordingly, it
is not currently possible to install 2.4 from a local non-Sun
CDROM drive. Your best bet for the short term may be to either
borrow a SunCD (locally or maybe from your Sun Rep) or to mount the
CD remotely on a machine that is already up and running and can
handle your non-Sun CDROM, and perform a network installation.
This is not a problem for non-SPARC versions of Solaris 2.x.
CDROMs that have been modified to use a 512 byte blocksize by default
will work fine.
The Sun CD-ROM FAQ explains how to patch Solaris 2.x for using a
non-Sun CD-ROM drive for booting/installation. It also includes
other information about using CD-ROM drives on Sun.
5.33) ifconfig can't find my network interface
Only network devices configured with an address at boot
are visible to ifconfig (i.e., if /etc/hostname.IFN exists).
To make a interface visible to ifconfig do:
ifconfig ifN plumb
5.34) I have an application that compiled fine, but when I run it I get:
fatal: libfoo.so.2: can't open file: errno=2 or No such file or directory
You need to add -R to the link command line.
E.g.,:
cc -L/usr/dt/lib -L/usr/openwin/lib \
-R/usr/dt/lib -R/usr/openwin/lib \
xprog.c -lXm -lXt -lX11
5.35) Motif programs dump core almost immediately.
You must specify the Motif library on the command line before other
X libraries.
WRONG:
cc .... -lXt -lXm
RIGHT:
cc .... -lXm -lXt
|5.36) cc complains that "language optional software package not installed".
There is no C compiler included in Solaris 2.x. The /usr/ucb/cc script
you are executing is a wrapper for the SunSoft C compiler which
calls the native C compiler with the /usr/ucb includes and libraries.
You need to get yourself a C compiler. Alternatively,
you may have forgotten to put the proper link from /usr/ccs/bin/ucbcc
to /opt/SUNWspro/SCxxxx/cc in place. See also 6.1.
If you do have a real compiler somewhere else, either put it earlier in
your path [PATH=/opt/SUNWspro/bin:....:/usr/ucb]
or if it is named something other than "cc", make a link as appropriate.
[PATH=/usr/local/bin:...:/usr/ucb ; ln -s ./gcc /usr/local/bin/cc]
| It's best to not have /usr/ucb in your PATH anyway.
5.37) thr_create/pthread_create and other thread functions always return -1
If you use SunPRO C 3.0 or later, you need to specify the
commandline option ``-mt'' when compiling and linking. If you and
earlier version of SunPRO C or when using gcc, you'll need to
specify -D_REENTRANT on compile command lines and -lthread/-lpthread
on the link command line. -lthread/-lpthread should precede -lc.
Compilers implicitly add -lc at the end of the link command line;
you do not have to add it yourself.
5.38) Solaris 2.4 is getting slower over time/seems to have a kernel
memory leak.
There are two possible causes for this kernel memory leak.
There's a bug in the volume management device driver that when
unloaded leaks memory: fix with patch 101907-05 (sparc) or
101908-07 (x86). This bug especially affects systems *not*
running vold, as it is triggered when the kernel decides to
unload unused device drivers.
The NFS client cache will cache too much. A simple workaround is to
add ``set nrnode = 1000'' to /etc/system and reboot. You may want
to make this larger or smaller depending on how much memory you
have. A good rule of thumb is about 20-30 rnodes per MB of
memory.
Another possible candidate is an overflow in /tmp or other
swap based (tmpfs) filesystems. Check with df/du.
5.39) Why do I get ``Unable to install/attach driver 'xxx''' messages?
The kernel complains that it can't load device drivers for
devices you don't have. They're harmless, ignore them.
5.40) I can't run nfs: netdir_getbyname failure, /dev/udp: bind problem
For some reason the nfs service has disappeared from your
/etc/services file, NIS map or NIS+ table. You need to
have an entry like:
nfsd 2049/udp nfs # NFS server daemon (clts)
nfsd 2049/tcp nfs # NFS server daemon (cots)
If you use NIS+, you must make sure that the NIS+ entry is readable
for the machine executing nfsd.
If you used your SunOS 4.x services file, that would explain it:
SunOS 4.x doesn't have an entry for nfsd in /etc/services,
Solaris 2.x requires one.
This will usually not happen until you upgrade to Solaris 2.4 or
a later revision. Solaris 2.3 and earlier would always consult
/etc/services, regardless of what nsswitch.conf said.
/etc/services does contain the right NFS entries.
Solaris 2.4 and earlier don't have an entry for NFS over tcp, so
this error is also likely to occur on 2.5+ NFS servers that are
NIS/NIS+ clients of 2.4- servers. In 2.5 the error message will look
like:
nfsd: Cannot get address for transport udp host \1 service nfs
nfsd: Cannot establish NFS service over /dev/udp: transport setup problem.
nfsd: Cannot get address for transport tcp host \1 service nfs
nfsd: Cannot establish NFS service over /dev/tcp: transport setup problem.
5.41) Why do I get ``named[]: rt_malloc: memdebug overflow'' errors?
That's caused by a bug in the Solaris 2.4 named. You need to install
the appropriate one of the following patches:
102479-01: SunOS 5.4: memory leak/mismanagement in in.named
102480-01: SunOS 5.4_x86: memory leak/mismanagement in in.named
The latest version of these patches include bind 4.9.3:
102479-12: SunOS 5.4: libresolv, in.named, named-xfer, nslookup ...
102480-10: SunOS 5.4_x86: libresolv, in.named, named-xfer, nslookup ...
|5.42) The ld command dumps core on Solaris/x86
Solaris 2.4/x86 ld dumps core when passed the "-s" option.
Workaround: Link without the -s option and use strip on
the resulting executable.
5.43) In Solaris 2.4 my TCP performance is extremely poor.
Patch 101969-05 broke TCP/IP throughput. You need to backout this
patch or obsolete it with the kernel jumbo patch (101945-27 or
later). The latter is recommended.
On Solaris 2.4 x86, later kernel jumbo patches (101946-29) triggered
bugs in some of the ethernet cards. This manifests itself as extremely
poor TCP throughput. On such systems, you need to install DU10 or
later.
5.44) Solaris 2.4 in.tftpd is terribly slow.
In Solaris 2.4 a bug was introduced that makes tftpboot chroot,
while it still needs to open a socket. The first request still
gets a response, but all other requests meet with a 5 second delay.
Workaround:
mkdir /tftpboot/dev
mknod /tftpboot/dev/udp c 11 41
chmod 755 /tftpboot/dev; chmod 666 /tftpboot/dev/udp
This is fixed with patch 102773-01 (sparc) and 102774-01 (x86).
5.45) I get "df: Could not find mount point ..."
If the mount point starts with /cdrom, there's a bug in the way
/etc/mnttab gets updated for HSFS CDroms in Solaris 2.4. Edit
/etc/mnttab and remove the dev= entry for those mountpoints that
give you trouble.
If the mount point name starts with /net/HOSTNAME, where HOSTNAME
is some other host, it's probably Sun bug 1207057. Try patch
102785-01 or later (SunOS 5.4) or 102783-01 or later (SunOS 5.3).
But if HOSTNAME is the current host, it's probably Sun bug 1220440;
unfortunately, this bug is still open as of Jan 2nd 1996.
|5.46) I changed root's shell, forgotten root's password, and I can't login.
If root no longer has a valid shell, your only recourse is to
boot single user *from CD*.
You need to mount the root file system and fix /etc/passwd.
If you run NIS or NIS+, you have an easier solution; just add an
account with uid 0 but with a different username and a valid shell.
Use that account to fix the problem with the root account.
5.47) How do I boot single user from CD?
In order to recover from some problems, you will need to boot
single user from CDrom.
On SPARC systems with Openboot PROMs, this is done through:
ok boot cdrom -s
On all systems, you can boot an interactive installation in the
window system and escape to a shell window. This method has the
advantage of usually mounting your filesystems under /a.
|+5.48) How do I interrupt the system boot sequence on SPARC?
| As opposed to Solaris Intel system which always prompt during boot-up,
| Solaris SPARC systems will boot without asking.
| To interrupt booting, use the key sequence "Stop-A" (or L1-A) on
| a Sun keyboard, using "Stop" as if it's a modifier (shift/control) key.
| On systems with a serial console, send a BREAK; most terminals
| and emulators support this.
|+5.49) How do I reset the NVRAM to factory defaults?
| During bootup, press down Stop and then N, holding them down at
| the same time.
| On SPARC systems with USB keyboards, this will have no effect.
| Those systems can be reset by quickly toggling the front panel power
| button, as if double, after the power LED has started flashing and
| you hear an audible beep.
| clicking on a mouse, after
|5.50) When linking C++ programs, I get "_ex_keylock" undefined.
You installed a patch for your C++ compiler (101910 (SPARC) or
102486 (x86)) but forgot to install the required companion patch
for libC.so.5.
Fix: install patch 101242-10 (SPARC) or 102859-01 (x86) or later.
This fix is included in Solaris 2.5+.
|5.51) My NFS server hangs when I get filesystem full/over quota errors.
Solaris 2.4 has a combination of problems that make running with
quotas of or with near-full disks almost impossible. The problems
include writing message to /dev/console, which requires switching
of interrupts and make the machine appear dead, clients caching
upto 2MB of failed writes and retrying them, hammering the server
to death.
Fix: kernel patch 101945-32 (sparc)/101946-29 (x86) or later.
Needs to be applied on clients as well as servers.
|5.52) OpenWindows fails with "Binding Unix Socket: Invalid argument"
This usually only happens on diskless/dataless clients. You
installed a new kernel jumbo patch on the server that exports /usr
to the client and failed to read the note in the patch readme that
says:
NOTE: If this patch is applied to a server, it should
also be applied to dataless clients that also
mount /usr from that server. Failure to do so will
generate this error message when openwin is started
on the client: "Binding Unix socket: Invalid argument".
The fix is to apply the same kernel jumbo patch to the client.
|5.53) Why is Xsun such a memory pig, especially on the SX, S24 and FFB?
Ps counts the mappings for the framebuffer as memory.
Especially on the FFB where a number of different mappings
of the device address space is used to optimize
access this can cause large amounts of memory, but not
physical memory, to be mapped and shown by ps.
It's not unusual for the FFB+ (Creator3D) to show a 500MB
process size for the X server.
Solaris 2.3 FCS also has a number of Xsun memory leaks when using
the SX. Get the SX patches or upgrade to a later release of
Solaris 2.x.
/usr/proc/bin/pmap (new in 2.5) will show the exact mappings used
by Xsun. "pmap -x" (new in 2.6) will even show how much of each
mapping is shared/private resident, etc. If Xsun has a memory leak,
you'll see a huge "[heap]" with pmap.
|5.54) Solaris 2.5 and Solaris 2.4 patch 101945-34+ have poor TCP performance
over slow links.
Solaris 2.5 and Solaris 2.4 kernel patch 101945-34 and later have
a bug in their TCP retransmission algorithm that cause excessive
retransmissions over slow links, Sun's bug ID is #1233827.
A work around for this bug is running the following commands
at system boot, e.g., by adding them to /etc/init.d/inetinit
(values are in milliseconds):
# DO NOT USE THESE CHANGES ON PATCHED SYSTEMS
/usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/tcp tcp_rexmit_interval_min 3000
/usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/tcp tcp_rexmit_interval_initial 3000
someone else suggested different changes, because with the above
retransmits when you do lose a packet take a long time. The following
uses a smaller value for the minimal retransmit interval but also
limits the outgoing packet size to 536 bytes, so retransmitted packets
are smaller and lost packets too.
# DO NOT USE THESE CHANGES ON PATCHED SYSTEMS
/usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/tcp tcp_rexmit_interval_min 1000
/usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/tcp tcp_rexmit_interval_initial 3000
/usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/tcp tcp_mss_max 536
Patches for this bug have been released, as listed below.
You should not combine the patches with the tcp_rexmit_interval
setting listed here (patches listed are the first revisions
with the fixes; newer versions fixing more problems have been
released and can be applied instead)
101945-42: SunOS 5.4: patch for kernel
103169-06: SunOS 5.5: ip driver and ifconfig fixes
103447-03: SunOS 5.5: tcp patch
103448-03: SunOS 5.5_x86: tcp patch
103170-06: SunOS 5.5_x86: ip driver and ifconfig fixes
103582-01: SunOS 5.5.1: /kernel/drv/tcp patch
103630-01: SunOS 5.5.1: ip and ifconfig patch
103631-01: SunOS 5.5.1_x86: ip and ifconfig patch
103581-01: SunOS 5.5.1_x86: /kernel/drv/tcp patch
103632-01: SunOS 5.5.1_ppc: ip and ifconfig patch
103583-01: SunOS 5.5.1_ppc: /kernel/drv/tcp patch
|5.55) After install x86 patch 101946-29, I have problems with sockets and
TCP/IP throughput.
These are two unrelated problems. To fix the socket problem, either
copy "sockmod" from an earlier kernel patch such as 101946-12 or
install patch 101946-35.
The performance problem is a device driver problem that doesn't
affect all ethernet cards. To fix this problem, you need to
install DU10 or later.
|5.56) The commands du and ls show funny block counts on NFSv3 filesystems.
The first release of Solaris 2.5 NFS V3 has a bug in calculating
the block allocations returned by stat. The server returns a
value that is 16 times the right value and the client returns
a value 16 times smaller to stat().
The net effect is that unpatched Solaris 2.5 machines look like
they're having no problems with each other.
But on clients with the bug, files on servers returning the right value
will have a block count 16 times too small. This breaks NFS v3 swap
files in Solaris 2.5, as swap files will seem to have holes in them
and swap will refuse to use them. If you see this problem, your client
needs patching.
On correct clients served by buggy servers, files will appear to
have 16 times as many blocks allocated as they should have.
This will generally do no more damage than overly large du(1) or
"ls -s" output.
There are two ways to fix this: one is to upgrade to Solaris 2.5.1 or
later, the second way is to install a patch for bug #1234858.
The fix for that bug is current included in the 2.5 kernel
update patch (103093/SPARC, 103094/x86).
It is important that these patches are installed on clients and servers
alike, especially on 2.5 clients using NFS swap files.
|5.57) When I halt/reboot my system I get "INIT: failed write of utmpx entry"
When the system shuts down, init(1m) updates /var/adm/utmp* to
reflect that fact.
If you have a separate /var filesystem, this operation will happen
*after* /var is unmounted and init complains:
INIT: failed write of utmpx entry:"s6"
INIT: failed write of utmpx entry:"rb"
You can safely ignore these messages.
|5.58) Patch installation often fails with "checkinstall" errors.
When installing a patch, the Solaris 2.5+ patch installation
procedure will execute the script "checkinstall" with uid nobody.
If any of the patch files or if any part of the path leading up to
the patch directory cannot be read by nobody, an error similar to
the following will appear:
patchadd . # or ./installpatch .
Generating list of files to be patched...
Verifying sufficient filesystem capacity (exhaustive method) ...
Installing patch packages...
pkgadd: ERROR: checkinstall script did not complete successfully
....
You can workaround this in two ways, one is to make sure that the
user "nobody" can read all patch files and execute a "pwd" in the
patch directory or add an account "install" to /etc/passwd:
install:x:0:1:installpatch braindamage:/:/bin/true
Installpatch and patchadd use "nobody" as a fallback if it cannot
find the "install" user.
|5.59) Why do I get a CPU-bound rpc.ttdbserverd process?
rpc.ttdbserverd is the RPC-based ToolTalk database server. It creates and
manages database files kept in TT_DB directories. See ttdbserverd(1M).
The problem is usually caused by corrupted entries in some TT_DB
directory. The solution is therefore to kill the running
rpc.ttdbserverd, and to completely remove all local TT_DB directories.
rpc.ttdbserverd will be restarted from inetd when it is needed again.
And it will rebuild the TT_DB directories automatically.
By default these TT_DB directories are created in the top directory of
every filesystem, however one can use /etc/tt/partition_map to tell
ttdbserverd where to put them. See partition_map(4) for more details.
A second possible cause is running out of filedescriptors, which can
be fixed by upping the soft limit on the number of filedescriptors
rpc.ttdbserverd starts with.
|5.60) What is /proc? Can I safely remove the large files there?
The /proc filesystem is a memory image of each process; it's a
virtual filesystem that occupies no disk space.
/proc is used for programs such as ps(1) and top(public domain)
and all the tools in /usr/proc/bin that can be used to examine
process state.
The only way to remove /proc is to unmount it, but that will break
a lot of useful programs.
|5.61) What does "named[XX]: Lame server on 'hostname' ...." mean?
The new named as shipped in Sun's latest bind patches prints message
about all kinds of configuration problems.
This particular message indicates that named has learned from a
nameserver that a particular domain is served by a particular
nameserver. When asked, however, that nameserver denies all
knowledge of the particular domain.
This is known as a "lame delegation", a reference that points nowhere.
If the lame server isn't yours, there's nothing you can do
about it.
|5.62) I installed Solaris on a new/big disk, but now booting fails.
Due to limitations in Openboot PROMs, you can't boot any of the 32bit
SPARCs (sun4c, sun4m, sun4d) from a root partition that has parts lying
beyond the 2GB mark on a SCSI disk.
On systems with really old PROMs (revision 2.5 or less) you need to
make the root partition smaller than 1GB.
The Ultra PROMs are capable of this, but Solaris prior to version 2.6
also has a bug which effectively prevents Ultras from booting from
large root partitions too. Patch 103640-08 or later fixes this
for Solaris 2.5.1, so later 2.5.1 HW releases should be OK too.
Typical error messages include:
bootblk: can't find the boot program
boot: cannot find misc/krtld
Short read. 0x2000 chars read
Read error.
|*5.63) I have a problem with large disk drives.
Various releases of Solaris have different upper limits in the
size of the IDE disks they support. For SCSI, there are
really no such limits, though older versions of format do
not support really large raids.
All releases support IDE disks <= 8GB; support for those
disks is primarily a BIOS issue on Intel.
| Support for IDE disks between 8 and 32 GB was added in Solaris 7/SPARC
| and Solaris 8/Intel. Note the difference in release between
| architectures.
| Support for IDE disks over 32 GB was added to Solaris 8 10/00
| for both SPARC and Intel.
| Solaris releases that support IDE disks upto 8GB will truncate
larger disks to 8GB. To use such disks to the max after upgrading
to a later release of Solaris/SPARC requires zeroing the disk label
with dd before relabeling it.
| Solaris releases that support disks between 8GB and 32 GB will
| truncate the disk to "real size modulo 32GB". I.e., a 40GB or 72GB
| disk becomes a 8GB one, a 33GB or 65GB disk becomes 1GB, etc.
| SPARC/IDE systems have no OpenBoot issues with disks over 8GB
| and can boot fine from beyond the 8GB/32GB mark.
Solaris/Intel didn't support IDE disks > 8GB until release 8;
BIOS permitting, Solaris 8 can even boot from beyond the 8GB mark.
Older Solaris/Intel releases have a hard time coping with such
big disks.
|5.64) When I try a network install I get:
"WARNING: using boot version 8, expected 9"
This error message, with varying version numbers, occurs when
a system is booted using an inetboot file for a different
revision.
This commonly happens when a netinstall image is upgraded without
running "add_install_client" again.
To fix this, you either need to remove and re-add your install
client or copy the proper inetboot files to /tftpboot.
|5.65) My Ultra shuts down with "WARNING: THERMAL WARNING DETECTED!!!"
The Ultras have environmental sensors that will cause system or board
shutdowns in case of overheating. The typical cause of this warning is
a blocked airflow or a broken CPU fan.
|5.66) Power management shuts down my monitor, but it never comes back.
This is caused by a bug in the cgsix device driver; install
the appropriate patch (105492 for 2.6)
|5.67) I can't seem to disable power management in 2.6!
The Solaris 2.6 Xserver insists on always doing power management of
the monitor. You need to remove the power management package to
get it to stop.
|5.68) Power management no longer kicks in when xlock runs
Set the XLock.enablesaver resource to "true". By default, xlock
disables the X screen saver.
The CDE screenlock needs to be set to "blank".
|5.69) Orainst 7.3.2 dumps core in 2.5.1 with patches and in 2.6.
Oracle has identified a bug in orainst which is triggered by
changes made to Solaris. Upgrade to Oracle 7.3.3 or later.
|5.70) My dial-on-demand link keeps dialing out, seems DNS related.
The nscd (name service cache daemon) tries to keep a hotlist of
hosts; these hosts are refreshed regularly so they won't get removed
from the cache. This feature should be disabled on systems with
dial-on-demand links. Edit /etc/nscd.conf and make the hot-count line
for hosts read like this:
keep-hot-count hosts 0
|5.71) Processes hang in door_call(), hostname lookups hang.
The door_call() on /etc/.name_service_door, is a fast IPC
mechanism used to call the name service cache daemon.
Usually, nscd speeds things up. However, on systems that do a
lot of DNS lookups, all such lookups are single threaded through
nscd. Nscd itself is multi-threaded, but the resolver library
uses one big global lock. On such systems, performance is
often best served by disabling the nscd host cache by editing
/etc/nscd.conf like this:
enable-cache hosts no
|5.72) When using Solaris 2.6, many fonts don't show up properly in Netscape 4.
You should install patch 105633-05 or later which fixes the 2.6 font
rendering problems.
|5.73) When using virtual interfaces in 2.6, the system picks a random
source address. How can I fix this?
You need to apply a patch:
105786-05: SunOS 5.6: /kernel/drv/ip patch
105787-04: SunOS 5.6_x86: /kernel/drv/ip patch
|5.74) A downloaded binary complains "libresolv.so.2: can't open file"
Because of various security problems, a new version of BIND was
released as a Solaris patch. This patch wasn't binary compatible, so
a new resolver library version needed to be made.
The binary you downloaded was build on a system with the patch
installed, your system lacks the patch or is running a release that
is too old. The patch is available for Solaris 2.3 and up and is
part of the recommended patch set.
|5.75) Ypserv/NIS w/ DNS is very unreliable in Solaris 2.6.
This is a known problem, install the following patches:
105552-02: SunOS 5.6: /usr/sbin/rpc.nisd_resolv patch
105553-02: SunOS 5.6_x86: /usr/sbin/rpc.nisd_resolv patch
|5.76) When trying to install Solaris 2.x on an Ultra-5/Ultra-10/Ultra-60,
it can't find "kernel/unix".
The Ultra-5, Ultra-10 and Ultra-60 require Solaris 2.5.1 HW 11/97
or Solaris 2.6 HW 3/98 or later. You can't boot them from older
installation media.
|5.77) After the system has been up for a while, freemem is only a couple of MB.
This is normal. When the system operates, it will gather more and
more cached data. E.g., every file ever read will be cached until
the memory is needed for some other purpose.
Free memory is wasted memory.
|5.78) A device driver that worked fine under S2.6 stopped loading under S7
There are two possible causes. It is possible that you're trying to
load a 32 bit driver on a 64 bit kernel; that doesn't work as
32 bit and 64 bit code are not compatible in one address space.
Drivers that use MT-Unsafe interfaces or that claim to be MT-Unsafe
also no longer load in Solaris 7.
In both cases, /var/adm/messages should give a pointer to the actual
cause
|5.79) I get a lot of "late collisions", what are those?
Late collisions are usually caused by an ethernet switch and
a ethernet host disagreeing on whether to run full-duplex or
half-duplex.
When a Sun complains about "late collisions", it runs in half-duplex
mode but the switch it is connected to thinks it should run in
full-duplex mode.
In full-duplex mode, collisions cannot occur.
|5.80) I can't mount an NFS filesystem, I get "RPC: Program not registered".
When the system boots, the NFS server is not enabled unless there
are NFS exports listed in /etc/dfs/dfstab.
To start the nfs server after adding an entry to dfstab, issue
the following command:
# /etc/init.d/nfs.server start
Note that it isn't currently possible to start the nfs server
using the "nfs.server" script unless there are entries in
/etc/dfs/dfstab.
If you want to do automatic sharing of CDs through vold, you need
to export at least one other filesystem if you're running Solaris 2.6
or earlier.
|5.81) How do I automatically NFS share inserted CD-Roms?
You need to add the following line to /etc/rmmount.conf:
share cdrom* -o ro
If the system isn't already acting as an NFS server, you'll need to run
# /etc/init.d/nfs.server start
In Solaris 2.6 and below, you will need to share something in
/etc/dfs/dfstab, otherwise mountd and nfsd won't be started.
|5.82) I cannot run remote tooltalk sessions on Solaris 8 displays and
recently patched older systems.
In order to prevent a number of tooltalk security problems,
a new method of tooltalk authentication was introduced.
This method uses a shared secret authentication system, using
$HOME/.TTauthority. This new authentication scheme is the
default.
Both systems that don't share home directories and systems with older
tooltalk client software won't be able to connect.
In the case of different home directories/user ids, you will
need to transfer TTauthority information. This works much
like $HOME/.Xauthority information. The new command to
use is ttauth(1)
In the case of older client software, you will need to install
the relevant ToolTalk patches. These are available for
Solaris 2.4 onwards.
|5.83) Where is all my memory in use?
The Solaris kernel operates on the assumption that
"free memory is wasted memory". Pages used for file
I/O will not be added to the free list unless they become
unreferenced (i.e., the file they belong to is both closed
and removed). Such pages are available for re-use but are
kept as a disk cache. After some period of operation,
Solaris will reach a point where all memory has been used
in the past and freemem will be reported as a low number from
that point on.
In Solaris 8 the filesystem cache was changed significantly;
as a result of these changes, cached pages are now reported
as free memory even though they still hold cached file data.
|5.84) Tcpd prints "connect (refused) from 0.0.0.0" in Solaris 8 and later?
The default inetd configuration in Solaris 8 and later have changed
the service type for most services from tcp/udp to tcp6/udp6.
You'll either need to change them back to tcp/udp or better, upgrade
your tcp wrappers to an IPv6 capable version as described in 4.17.
|5.85) The permissions on /tmp are wrong after a reboot?
The tmpfs filesystems takes on the permissions from the underlying
mount point. In order to fix /tmp, you need to boot single user and
execute the following two commands:
chmod 1777 /tmp
chown root:sys /tmp
6. SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
6.1) Where is the C compiler or where can I get one?
Where have you been? :-) Sun has dropped their old K&R C
compiler, supposedly to create a market for multiple compiler
suppliers to provide better performance and features. Here
are some of the contenders:
1) SunPro C:
SunPro, SMCC, and various distributors sell a new
ANSI-standard C compiler on the unbundled (extra cost)
SPARCcompiler/SPARCworks CD-ROM. There are some other nice
tools there too, like a "make tool" and a visual diff
(interactive diff).
You have to license and pay per concurrent user.
2) Apogee compilers
Apogee sells C, C++, f77 and f90 compilers, mainly for SPARC.
These compiler include the KAP preprocessors from Kuck and
Associates.
3) Cygnus GCC:
Cygnus Support and the Free Software Foundation make the GNU C
compiler for Solaris, a free software product. Source code
and ready-to-run binaries can be installed from the CDware CD
(Volume 4 or 5).
Like all GNU software, there are no restrictions on who can
use it, how many people can use it at a time, what machines it
can be run on, or how many copies you can install, run, give
away, or sell.
Cygnus sells technical support for these tools, under annual
support contracts.
The Cygnus distribution includes:
gcc (ansi C compiler), gdb (good debugger), byacc (yacc repl),
flex (lex repl), gprof, makeinfo, texindex, info, patch,
cc (a link to gcc)
The Cygnus compiler on uunet is starting to show its age a
bit. If you want to compile X11R5, you can get the latest
version of GCC in source code, from the usual places
(prep.ai.mit.edu or one of the many mirrored copies of it).
Build and install that compiler using the Cygnus gcc binaries.
Or get tech support from Cygnus; they produce a new version
for their customers every three months, and will fix any
bug you find.
4) Gcc.
Gcc is available from the GNU archives in source form. You need
gcc 2.3.3 or later, and you should prefer gcc 2.8.0 or later as it
works better with Solaris 2.x include files.
You should not use GNU as or GNU ld. Make sure you run just-fixinc
if you use a binary distribution. Better is to get a binary
version and use that to bootstrap gcc from source.
GNU software is available from:
prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu
gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/GNU
ftp.uu.net:/systems/gnu
wuarchive.wustl.edu:/mirrors/gnu
nic.funet.fi:/pub/gnu
When you install gcc, don't make the mistake of installing
GNU binutils or GNU libc, they are not as capable as their
counterparts you get with Solaris 2.x.
5) Info on other compiler vendors will be added if you send us some.
6.2) Which packages do I need to install to support a C compiler?
Solaris ships with everything you need, with the exception of the
compiler itself. Solaris ships with the include files, make, an
assembler, linker and libraries. All this stuff lives in
/usr/ccs/bin (add it to your PATH before /usr/ucb if that's in your
PATH as well) /usr/ccs/lib and /usr/include.
If you still can't find it, make sure you have the following
packages installed on your system:
for tools (sccs, lex, yacc, make, nm, truss, ld, as):
SUNWbtool, SUNWsprot, SUNWtoo
for libraries & headers:
SUNWhea, SUNWarc, SUNWlibm, SUNWlibms
SUNWdfbh, SUNWcg6h, SUNWxwinc, SUNWolinc,
SUNWxglh
for 64 bit development:
SUNWarcx, SUNWbtoox, SUNWdplx, SUNWscpux, SUNWsprox,
SUNWtoox, SUNWlmsx, SUNWlmx, SUNWlibCx
for ucb compat:
SUNWsra, SUNWsrh
These packages are all on the Solaris 2.x CDs, except that some
packages may only exist in some releases and not in others.
Some packages may be on separate CDs, such as the "Desktop/CDE"
CD, but all are part of the Solaris "bundle".
6.3) Where has ranlib gone?
The functionality provided by ranlib in SunOS 4.1.x is now
merged into ar. It is no longer necessary to run ranlib
on archive libraries. Fix makefiles that require ranlib
by replacing it with "/bin/true".
A no-op ranlib has been reintroduced in 2.5.
6.4) What do I need to compile X11R5?
There are several "patch kits" for X11R5 under Solaris 2.1.
Most of them require gcc 2.3.3 or later and unless you are
running gcc 2.8.0 or later you must have run "fixincludes"
when you install the gcc software.
The recommended patchkit is R5.SunOS5.patch.tar.Z available
from ftp.x.org:/R5contrib. It works with gcc (2.3.3 or later)
and SunPRO C.
X11R6 compiles out-of-the-box on Solaris 2.3.
6.5) I can't compile X11R6 on Solaris 2.4
There are several possible problems when compiling X11R6 on Solaris 2.4,
all are solved after applying R6 fixes upto and including fix-12.
These problems are:
The compilation of xc/programs/Xserver/Xext/shm.c will fail with
a redefinition of shmat().
Compilation errors when using SC 2.0.x.
See also 6.6
6.6) X11R6 on Solaris 2.4 won't run. Xinit dies with "User Signal 1".
Xterms won't die. Dired doesn't work in emacs-19.
Some changes in libc.so and libthread.so break the way libthread is
linked with libX11.so. The most noticeable symptoms are failing
signal handling in xinit, xterms that don't die after the inferior
shell process exits and emacs-19 hanging after starting dired.
Apply all fixes upto fix-12 to the X11R6 sources. Remember to
change OSMinorVersion to 4 in xc/config/cf/sun.cf as well and use
"make Everything" or "make World", not just "make". Make sure you
change the right OSMinorVersion in sun.cf, the first one is the x86
minor version, the second one is SPARC one. Change the one
appropriate for your system or change both.
The resulting R6 will not run on Solaris 2.3 or earlier.
If you want to have the same set of binaries for Solaris 2.3
and 2.4, you need to disable threaded X altogether by changing
"#define ThreadedX YES" to "#define ThreadedX NO" in sun.cf.
Note that you must reinstall the X libraries with "make install"
before things start working. There is no need to reinstall
anything but libX11.so. Xterm, emacs etc., should start working
after the change to libX11 is installed. Check your newly
installed libX11 with dump -Lv libX11.so.6. If it still shows
libthread as "NEEDED", the rebuild didn't work correctly. Double
check your changes. (If you previously used the patch from the FAQ,
make sure you remove it before applying fix-12.)
For multi-threaded X to work it necessary to install patch 101925-02
to fix problems in header files [2.4]. Unless you are running
gcc 2.8.0 or later, you need to reinstall gcc or re-run just-fixinc
after installing that patch.
6.7) I get undefined symbols when compiling R6 in Solaris 2.2.
Solaris 2.2 doesn't have the full thread support required
by X11R6. Compile R6 without multi-thread support or
upgrade to 2.3 or later.
6.8) After compiling X11R6 with gcc 2.7.0, X programs won't find their
libraries.
Someone at GNU made a bad mistake by adding a the following
misfeature to gcc 2.7.0: in the absence of -R options, specify
a -R option for each -L option on the commandline.
While this looks "neat" on the surface, this makes ld ignore
LD_RUN_PATH, which is the mechanism used by R6 to set the RPATH.
It also introduces a security hole, as it sets a relative RPATH for
all X executables, including the set-uid ones.
Workaround:
remove the following bit from the gcc-lib/.../2.7.0/specs file:
%{!static:%{!R*:%{L*:-R %*}}}
then rebuild X.
This is fixed in gcc 2.7.1
6.9) How can I run X11R6 on my SS4 w/ TCX?
Although it is possible to switch the TCX to dumb cg3 mode and
run X11R6 on that, Matt Landau of the X consortium said the
following on the matter:
"But why would you want an accelerated 24-bit framebuffer to
behave like a dumb 8-bit framebuffer under Solaris 2?
"OpenWindows versions 3.3 and 3.4 (bundled with Solaris 2.3 and
Solaris 2.4 respectively) are perfectly reasonable R5-based
implementations of X, with a perfectly good R5 server that also
does DPS and takes advantage of the TCX. They have none of the
brokenness associated with the old X11/NeWS server from OpenWindows
versions 3.2 and before.
"Of course, if you want R6 libraries and apps, you can build R6 and
run R6 applications against the OpenWindows 3.4 server, and still
get full benefit of the TCX. Works just fine."
6.10) Can I run X11R6 on my SX, ZX, TCX, Creator, Creator3D or Elite3D?
X11R6.4 and earlier do not support any of Sun's new framebuffers,
including all PCI framebuffers.
Run Sun's Xsun instead, it works fine.
|*6.11) I can't get perl 4.036 to compile or run.
| You really should be using perl 5; perl 4.036 hasn't been updated
| since 1992 and is considered "dead".
Run Configure, and use the solaris_2_0 hints, *don't* use
the solaris_2_1 hints and don't use the config.sh you may
already have. First you must make sure Configure and make
don't find /usr/ucb/cc. (It must use gcc or the native C
compiler: /opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc)
Some questions need a special answer.
Are your system (especially dbm) libraries compiled with gcc? [y] y
yes: gcc 2.3.3 or later uses the standard calling
conventions, same as Sun's C.
Any additional cc flags? [ -traditional -Dvolatile=__volatile__
-I/usr/ucbinclude] -traditional -Dvolatile=__volatile__
Remove /usr/ucbinclude.
Any additional libraries? [-lsocket -lnsl -ldbm -lmalloc -lm
-lucb] -lsocket -lnsl -lm
Don't include -ldbm, -lmalloc and -lucb.
| Perl 5 compiles out of the box and comes preinstalled with Solaris 8
| and later.
6.12) I can't get sockets to work with perl.
Some of the socket constants have changed. E.g., SOCK_STREAM
now has a value of 2, whereas SunOS 4.x uses a value of 1.
Use perl5 modules and the symbolic values they define instead.
6.13) I have problems compiling MH 6.8.3
The MH config file for Solaris that comes with MH 6.8.3 should work
OK, but there are some other problems: One of the Solaris 2.x headers
conflicts with mhn.c and inc doesn't know how to separate messages
based on the Content-Length header. A fix for both problems can be found
in:
6.14) I can't get XV 3.x to compile or run correctly.
You need to get xv-3.x from ftp.cis.upenn.edu:/pub/xv.
Don't use xv-3.01 from ftp.x.org. The latest version, xv-3.10,
compiles fine w/o any of the ucb stuff.
6.15) What happened to NIT? What new mechanisms exist for low-level
network access?
See man page DLPI(7). Try NFSWATCH 4.2 for sample code using DLPI.
It is available by ftp from:
ftp.ecn.purdue.edu:/pub/davy/nfswatch4.3.tar.gz
and
gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/net/ip/nfs/nfswatch4.3.tar.gz
Better yet, FTP the paper "How to Use DLPI in Solaris 2.x" by
Neal Nuckolls of Sun Internet Engineering. Look in
these FTP directories:
opcom.sun.ca:/pub/drivers/dlpi
http://www.freebird.org/hints/papers/{dlpi,npi,tpi}.ps.Z
6.16) Where are all the functions gone that used to be in libc?
The C library has exploded. The manual page may give an
indication where to find a specific function.
Those libraries are essentially split over two directories:
/usr/lib /usr/ccs/lib.
Important libraries:
/usr/lib:
libsocket - socket functions
libnsl - network services library
/usr/ccs/lib:
libgen - regular expression functions
libcurses - the SysVR4 curses/terminfo library.
In Solaris 7 the contents of /usr/ccs/lib was moved back to
/usr/lib.
See Intro(3) for more details.
6.17) I'm still missing some functions: bcopy, bzero and friends.
They are in /usr/ucblib/libucb.so. The b* functions
are replaced with the ANSI-C equivalents. Look
in the Solaris porting FAQ for more details.
In Solaris 2.5, they're back in libc.so, together with many
other commonly used BSD functions.
6.18) Can I use the source compatibility package to postpone porting?
Not really. The Source code compatibility package is
compatible with BSD 4.2, not SunOS 4.1.x. The consensus
is that the library is broken beyond usability.
If you use libucb to pick up some functions you need, it
is often best to specify it *after* all other libraries and
after libc with:
-lc -L/usr/ucblib -R/usr/ucblib -lucb
or preferably:
-lc /usr/ucblib/libucb.a
6.19) Why doesn't readdir work? It chops the first two characters of
all filenames.
You're probably linking with libucb and didn't read question
6.18. (Readdir in libucb.so wants you to include sys/dir.h,
but many SunOS 4.1.x programs included , consequently,
you're mixing native struct dirent with libucb
readdir(). The symptom of this mixup is that the first two
characters of each filename are missing. Make sure you use a
native compiler (default /opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc, which may not be in
your PATH), and not /usr/ucb/cc.
6.20) Why do I get undefined symbols when linking with curses/termcap?
It is easy to mixup the BSD libcurses and the SVR4 libcurses.
One lives in /usr/ucblib, the other in /usr/ccs/lib, when
you've installed SUNWarc. Note that when you specify:
-L/usr/ucblib -lucb -L/usr/ccs/lib -lcurses
you will pick the *ucb* version of libcurses, not the SVR4
version. If you always put libucb last, as recommended in 6.18,
you will have no such problem.
6.21) Where are the Motif includes and libraries?
Starting with Solaris 2.4, the package SUNWmfrun is included with
the base OS. It is installed under the directory /usr/dt,
where all the CDE stuff is installed (dt stands for desktop).
There are no Motif imake templates nor is mwm shipped with the
base OS; only the mwm -like Dtwm is shipped.
Remember that you must link with -R/usr/dt/lib.
6.22) When I call semctl(), my program crashes. It works fine elsewhere.
The fourth argument to semctl() is a "union semun" that you need to
define yourself. That your programs works on other systems is
sheer luck. The argument passing convention on SPARC/V8 cause your
luck to run out. Instead of passing the contents of small structs
and unions in registers, a copy of the struct/union is made on the
stack and a pointer to that struct is passed.
In short, on SPARC, passing a union containing an integer and just
an integer, both by value, is not the same thing. On other systems
it sometimes is.
Wrong, but it may work on other systems:
semctl(sem_fd, 0, SETVAL, 1);
Right:
union semun {
int val;
struct semid_ds *buf;
ushort *array;
} arg;
arg.val = 1;
semctl(sem_fd, 0, SETVAL, arg);
6.23) Traceroute to Solaris 2.x machines gives many timeouts.
Solaris 2.4 and later (and Solaris 2.3 w/ high rev kernel jumbo
patches) limit the number of ICMP error message to one
per 500 milliseconds. To switch off this feature, use:
/usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/ip ip_icmp_err_interval 0
In Solaris 8 the rate limiting mechanism was changed and traceroute
will get all responses now as the new mechanism accepts short
burst even though the rate limit is still in effect.
6.24) I have problems linking my application statically.
In Solaris 2.x static linking is not supported for any of the
system libraries. All the functions that use /etc/nsswitch.conf
(getXXXbyYYY, getpwXXX, etc) require the dynamic linker to
load the code to load these functions. It is not possible
to write configurable/extensible functions in such a way that
dynamic linking is not required. E.g., you can add your own
nsswitch.conf backend which would not be known to programs
statically linked to only the standard backend code.
Programs that link statically against any of the OS libraries
may not run in the next release and are not ABI compliant.
Programs that link statically don't get some dynamic performance
enhancements found in the shared libraries: using hardware
multiply/divide on systems that support it; using fast mem*()
operations on UltraSPARC etc. And you won't pick up performance
enhancements in next releases: e.g., Solaris 2.5 comes with
a 4x faster fread/fwrite and the "Name Server Cache Daemon".
If you don't care about ABI compliance, i.e., you won't
ship your program as a product and don't care that you may
need to recompile after an OS upgrade, here are some of your
options:
Link statically against all but libdl:
cc -Bstatic .... -Bdynamic -ldl -Bstatic
Link against dl* stubs (gethostbyXXX, getpwXXX etc won't work any
longer):
char *dlopen() { return 0;}
int dlclose() { return 0;}
char *dlsym() { return 0;}
char *dlerror() { return "dynamic linking not loaded";}
If you don't want any dependencies on /usr, link against the dynamic
libs in /etc/lib:
cc -Bstatic ... -Bdynamic -R/etc/lib -Wl,-I/etc/lib/ld.so.1 -ldl
-Bstatic ....
If you still get undefined symbols, check with ldd for all your
libraries if they have any dynamic dependencies. E.g.,
% ldd /usr/lib/libsocket.so.1
libnsl.so.1 => /usr/lib/libnsl.so.1
libdl.so.1 => /usr/lib/libdl.so.1
libc.so.1 => /usr/lib/libc.so.1
libintl.so.1 => /usr/lib/libintl.so.1
libw.so.1 => /usr/lib/libw.so.1
tells you that if you want to link libsocket statically,
you need to link with -lnsl -ldl -lc -lintl and -lw as well.
There is no way to statically link 64 bit executables; no 64 bit
archive libraries are shipped with Solaris.
6.25) I get '"/usr/platform/SUNW,Ultra-1/lib/libc_psr.so.1": not in
executable format: format not recognized' from gdb on my Ultra.
gdb needs to be updated to understand the "V8+" executable format.
Either install gdb 4.16 or later, or update the gdb 4.15.1
distribution with the following patch to bfd/elf32-sparc.c and
include/elf/common.h:
*** gdb-4.15.1/bfd/elf32-sparc.c Fri Nov 3 12:30:15 1995
--- elf32-sparc.c Thu Nov 23 14:44:37 1995
***************
*** 1486,1491 ****
--- 1486,1492 ----
#define TARGET_BIG_NAME "elf32-sparc"
#define ELF_ARCH bfd_arch_sparc
#define ELF_MACHINE_CODE EM_SPARC
+ #define ELF_MACHINE_ALT1 EM_SPARC32PLUS
#define ELF_MAXPAGESIZE 0x10000
#define elf_backend_create_dynamic_sections \
_bfd_elf_create_dynamic_sections
*** gdb-4.15.1/include/elf/common.h Fri Nov 3 20:20:25 1995
--- common.h Thu Nov 23 14:20:07 1995
***************
*** 83,88 ****
--- 83,91 ----
#define EM_SPARC64 11 /* SPARC v9 (not official) 64-bit */
#define EM_PARISC 15 /* HPPA */
+
+ #define EM_SPARC32PLUS 18 /* Sun SPARC 32+ */
+
#define EM_PPC 20 /* PowerPC */
/* If it is necessary to assign new unofficial EM_* values, please pick large
6.26) How can I make Gdb work with Sun's C compiler?
Sun's C compiler only stores symbolic debugging information in
the .o files. Gdb wants to find that information in the executable.
You can force the symbols in the executable by passing the "-xs"
commandline option to Sun's C compiler.
6.27) Does Solaris have problems with dates in the year 2000 and after?
Internally, Solaris maintains time as the number of seconds since
1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (not counting leap seconds). This counter
won't have any problem with dates in the year 2000; since it is
maintained as a 32-bit signed integer value in 32 bit kernels and
applications, it will work correctly through 2038-01-19 03:14:07 UTC.
64-bit Solaris uses a 64 bit time value which will last longer than the
current estimated age of the universe; but 32 bit applications,
such as most Solaris 7 applications, still use 32 bit time.
Also, 64-bit applications may have trouble with time stamps
outside the 32-bit range. For example, Solaris 7 supports only
32-bit time stamps on ordinary files, the 64-bit ctime and asctime
functions have undefined behavior for time stamps after the year 9999,
and the 64-bit localtime function has undefined behavior for huge time
stamps (time stamps after the year INT_MAX + 1900 == 2147485547).
Though the Solaris kernel itself shouldn't have any problems with the
year 2000, applications themselves may have problems, partly because
some application writers unwisely chose to represent dates using
two-digit years, and partly because some application writers
mistakenly thought that localtime returns the year modulo 100, when it
actually returns the year minus 1900. These kinds of problems are
rarer in Solaris than with typical mainframe applications, but they
sometimes do occur.
A year 2000 project at Sun is reviewing all libraries, unbundled
software, and some 3rd party apps in search of potential year 2000
problems, so that they are resolved well before the big day.
Solaris 2.6 and Solaris 7 are meant to be year-2000 compliant.
However, some y2000 bugs have been found after Solaris 2.6 was released.
A few more bugs were found after Solaris 7 was released. Y2000 patches
are available from SunSolve Online, free of charge.
If you have the following supported SMCC hardware, you must
also patch your PROM monitor to get year-2000 compliance:
- SPARCserver 1000, 1000E, 2000, 2000E
- Sun Enterprise 3000, 4000, 5000, 6000,
with PROM version 3.2.9 or earlier
The SPARCservers will need to have their OBP PROMs swapped.
The PROM bugs do not affect day-to-day operation or booting, only
output from diagnostics and self-tests is affected.
All other supported SMCC hardware should be OK as is.
(Note that the older 68000-based hardware is no longer supported.)
Sun-maintained Solaris applications with known year-2000 problems as
of Solaris 2.5.1 (unpatched) include the following.
* SCCS files store only the last two digits of the year, so standard
SCCS stops working after 1999. Sun works around this problem by
having SCCS interpret two digit years to be in the date range
1969-2068; this means the revised SCCS will stop working after
2068.
* The Solaris 1 `date' command can't set the clock past 1999.
This bug is partly fixed in Solaris 2 `date', which supports both
2-digit and 4-digit years; however, in Solaris 2 you should use
4-digit years when setting the date, to avoid some remaining bugs
with 2-digit year handling.
* The following programs are known to have minor bugs related to using
year-1900 instead of year modulo 100 when generating diagnostics,
temporary file names, and the like:
atq fsck listen passwd sar timex ufsdump uucico uustat uuxqt xterm
* The -me, -mm, and -ms troff macro packages all assume that
the current date is before January 1, 2000.
* `sortbib' mishandles bibliographies containing 2-digit years that
span the year-2000 boundary.
* `ckdate' rejects years after 1999.
* Problems have been reported with installing Solaris on machines
whose hardware date is past 1999.
* The filemgr `find after' and `find before' operations have only 2-digit
inputs for years, and mishandle dates after 1999.
* cm (the calendar manager) mishandles dates after 2000-02-29.
* In Openstep, NSCalendarDate, NSDate*, Mail, and Preference need
enhancements and fixes for years past 1999.
In addition, user applications that invoke `getdate' and `strptime' on
2-digit years are advised to check their assumptions carefully.
Patches for year 2000 problems will be made available for all releases
not EOLed at January 1, 1995, in keeping with the 5 year support
window. This includes the Solaris releases 2.5.1, 2.5, 2.4 and 2.3 as
well as SunOS 4.1.3_U1B and 4.1.4.
Solaris 2.x Y2000 patches can be freely downloaded from
Sun's public patch page.
6.28) I can't seem to get older gcc releases to work under Solaris 2.6
As with all new Solaris releases, you need to reinstall gcc after
upgrading, unless your are running gcc 2.8.0 or later.
Unfortunately, Solaris 2.6 include files don't get properly fixed
by fixincludes. To fix this, apply the following patch to
fixinc.svr4 before building gcc.
*** ./fixinc.svr4.org Thu Jun 15 23:03:29 1995
--- ./fixinc.svr4 Thu Sep 4 13:41:29 1997
***************
*** 189,194 ****
--- 189,195 ----
s/__STDC__[ ][ ]*==[ ][ ]*1/defined (__STRICT_ANSI__)/g
s/__STDC__[ ][ ]*!=[ ][ ]*0/defined (__STRICT_ANSI__)/g
s/__STDC__ - 0 == 0/!defined (__STRICT_ANSI__)/g
+ s/__STDC__ - 0 == 1/defined (__STRICT_ANSI__)/g
/^typedef[ ][ ]*[unsigned ]*long[ ][ ]*[u_]*longlong_t;/s/long/long long/
' $2/$file > $2/$file.sed
mv $2/$file.sed $2/$file
6.29) Gdb doesn't fully work on Solaris 2.6.
Solaris 2.6 defines a new interface for interaction between the
debugger and the runtime linker. Previous releases don't support
any such interface, so debuggers would use unpublished hooks.
The following patch to gdb 4.16 fixes this problem.
--- ./gdb/solib.c.org Sat Mar 30 06:58:51 1996
+++ ./gdb/solib.c Sat Sep 6 14:48:18 1997
@@ -67,6 +67,7 @@
#ifdef SVR4_SHARED_LIBS
static char *solib_break_names[] = {
+ "rtld_db_dlactivity",
"r_debug_state",
"_r_debug_state",
"_dl_debug_state",
6.30) I can't get gdb to compile with Sun's C compiler
Older versions of Solaris didn't declare __builtin_alloca; the
prototype provided for it with gdb doesn't agree with the one
supplied with current Solaris versions.
--- ./libiberty/alloca-norm.h.org Thu Jun 29 04:15:41 1995
+++ ./libiberty/alloca-norm.h Sat Sep 6 14:50:35 1997
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
#else /* not __GNUC__ */
#ifdef sparc
#include
-extern char *__builtin_alloca(); /* Stupid include file doesn't declare it */
+extern void *__builtin_alloca(); /* Stupid include file doesn't declare it */
#else
#ifdef __STDC__
PTR alloca (size_t);
7. KERNEL PARAMETERS
|7.1) Where can I find a list of all Solaris kernel parameters?
The most important kernel parameters can be found in the
tunable parameters guide.
It's focus is Solaris 8 but sufficient history is included to make
the guide extremely useful for earlier releases.
There is also a large number of kernel variables of which the main
purpose is debugging and testing or even disabling of new(er)
algorithms that are seen to be risky. Such variables are typically
not documented, except in workarounds when problems do arise.
|*7.2) How can I guard my system against stack buffer overflow exploits?
By default, the Solaris kernel maps the system stack RWX;
this behaviour is mandated by the SPARC V8 ABI. Since an
non-executable stack gets in the way of certain classes of
security bug exploits, a feature was added to Solaris 2.6 that
allows system administrators to remove the "X" protection from
the stack.
To enable this feature, add the following to /etc/system:
* Foil certain classes of bug exploits
set noexec_user_stack = 1
* Log attempted exploits
set noexec_user_stack_log = 1
This is no general "cure-all" protection for buffer overflow exploits.
It may also break certain SPARC V8 ABI conforming programs.
This feature also requires hardware support; it is only available on
UltraSPARC (sun4u), sun4d and sun4m systems.
The SPARC V9 ABI no longer maps the stack executable, so 64 bit
| applications have less to worry about. 32-bit applications running
| on a 64-bit kernel are not so lucky.
7.3) How can I restrict the number of processes per user?
Set the following in /etc/system:
set maxuprc =
7.4) What purpose does the maxusers variable serve?
The maxusers variable has nothing to do with the number of
user allowed on a system. It's one big knob that scales a number
of other parameters simultaneously. The standard settings and
derivations are more or less as follows, using /etc/system syntax:
* The big knob, scales automatically
set maxusers =
* Maximum number of allowable processes; currently at most 30000
set max_nprocs = 10 + 16 * maxusers
* Max processes per user (5 are reserved for the super user)
set maxuprc = max_nprocs - 5;
* Number of quota structures (need one per user per filesystem
* w/ quotas)
set ndquot = maxusers * NMOUNT / 4 + max_nprocs
* Maximum size of the directory name lookup cache (DNLC)
set ncsize = 4 * (max_nprocs + maxusers) + 320
set ufs_ninode = ncsize
7.5) How can I have a clock resolution better than 10ms?
Starting with Solaris 2.6, this can be achieved with the following
entry in /etc/system:
set hires_tick = 1
This will set the system hz value to 1000.
In principle, you can also set "hz" directly, but that is not supported
nor recommended:
* Get 0.1 ms clock resolution/timer granularity
set hz = 10000
Solaris 8 introduces the cyclic subsystem; this allows for timers
of much better granularity without burdening the system with a high
interrupt rate. High resolution timers are available to root
only using timer_create(3rt) with a clock_id of CLOCK_HIGHRES.
|7.6) How can I have more than 16 groups per user?
The number of groups per user can be increased to at most 32:
set ngroups_max = 32
This setting may give rise to NFS interoperability problems, as
typical NFS servers only support 16 groups when using AUTH_SYS/AUTH_UNIX.
The other NFS authentication mechanisms map "netids" to usernames
on the servers and can support more than 16 groups.
7.7) How can I disable _POSIX_CHOWN_RESTRICTED? My users want to chown files?
Add the following to /etc/system:
set rstchown = 0
Note that this defeats quotas.
7.8) How can I make the NFS server ignore unprivileged clients?
In a restricted environment, i.e., an environment where the
administrator controls root access, you can enhance NFS security
by setting the "NFS_PORTMON" variable. This variable is set in
/etc/system, like this:
* Prior to Solaris 2.5
set nfs:nfs_portmon = 1
* Solaris 2.5 and later
set nfssrv:nfs_portmon = 1
8. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Most of this material is either written by me or sent to me
directly. Some of it is cribbed shamelessly from USENET postings
in several groups.
Thanks to all people who contributed to this FAQ,
you know who you are. The list is too long to be included
in this FAQ.
--- End of Solaris 2.x FAQ -- Maintained by Casper Dik ---
--
Expressed in this posting are my opinions. They are in no way related
to opinions held by my employer, Sun Microsystems.
Statements on Sun products included here are not gospel and may
be fiction rather than truth.